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THE RISING SUN: TOUR DU KUMANO RACE REPORT
Lee Rodgers
June 16, 2009
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The Tour Du Kumano is a 4-stage UCI Asia Pro-Tour event, held in Wakayama Prefecture in Japan from May 28th to May 31st.
Prologue
It rages. A frothing pack of little adrenal junkies go manic at the gates of the Adrenal Gland, ripping past the useless doormen to hijack my nervous system and leave a trail of misery and destruction in their rabid wake. I can hear the roar in my ears, they’re starving me of saliva, forcing my electrolyte-loaded sweat from the very center of my palms like I’m some cycling sham-messiah brought back from the dead to atone for the sins of my lycra-clad brethren. About to Pay In Pain. He Of The Sweaty Astigma.
Yes. The Time Trial is about to begin… He counts me down in Japanese. I compute the seconds into English even though I don’t have to, an automatic response that might be my mind’s attempt at telling the rest of my overloaded system to calm down. But it’s the first stage in my first ever UCI Asia Pro Tour event, and – whisper it – I have a chance to win. A chance slimmer than Michael Rasmussen on a lettuce diet, perhaps, but a chance nonetheless.
Go….Yon….San….Ni…Ichi….GO!
As though shot with 2000 volts of electricity every sinew tightens, anchor ropes pulled taut in a howling ocean, but I pull harder and break free, down the ramp and I’m off, hurtling past the store fronts and across the intersections, the people watching become a lightning blur, harder harder harder, no other thought, must go harder…
Hit the first corner, 90 degrees, three more come in quick succession then back onto the finishing straight, with a mighty gust of wind at my back propelling me down the course, and it’s over. I hardly took a breath. And it’s over?
My official time is one minute eight seconds point thirty-two. 0.75 kilometers. It was the most utterly pointless TT in the history of TTs. The course was very dangerous, what with the short tight turns, each running over grating, made even more treacherous by the rain that’s been falling all day. Lance and Di Luca would have been protesting like mad. All that preparation! All that adrenalin used up! All those big words! It took far longer to write what you’ve just read than to do that TT… It took longer to go to the toilet beforehand than it took to do that TT… I came in a decent 21st out of 165, three seconds off the leader, Marius Wiesiak Of Nippo-Colnago.
Tomorrow is 121kms on a tight windy 14 km course. I’m saving myself for
the mountain stage on Saturday, so will be hoping to just stay in the
pack!
Post-ride recovery food is a little different over here
Team Nutritionist!
Stage One
It rained so hard today that you didn’t need to bother taking a drink. The wind roared around us, causing decimation to the pack. Two guys went off the front on the second lap – Suzuki of Skil-Shimano and Iglinsky of the Kazakhstan National team – then a chasing group of 8, including me, went after them, breaking free of the main pack at the top of a nasty little 800m climb that was around a constant 10% gradient. We had three guys from a SA team called Neotel in the group, a couple of Japanese guys, a Taipei National Team rider and another Kazakh, Dimitry Fofonov.
No need to take a drink!
I was surprised to be in a break as all I wanted to do was to conserve energy, so though I did my share of the work, I didn’t go as hard as I usually would have. I could hear a voice asking me `What the hell do you think you are doing??!!` It was ridiculous, my first time in a pro-level event like this, trying to bridge up to the leaders - and yet there I was, feeling great!
Anyway the motorbike pulled alongside to show us a blackboard – 1min40secs down on the leaders and only 25secs ahead of the chasing pack, with two laps to go. It was over. Suddenly the Kazakh guy Fofonov just went away from us. It was incredible. We were doing about 50km/h and off he went without the slightest sign of effort. I chased for about 400m but didn’t even get close to him, so sat up to wait for the others and then the pack. After that I realized that I had used a lot of energy, too much really, so sat at the back of the pack and hung on for dear life.
Finally the finish line approached. We came in 1min25secs down on the trio of Iglinsky, Fofonov and Suzuki, who finished in that order. Of the 16 or so of us that started only 45 made it to the finish before the ten-minute cut-off time. Incredibly everyone on my team, except me, got cut. So here I am, though exhausted, very positive after such a decent result – I’m 14th overall tonight – with no one to celebrate with! The rest of the team look like their first pets have just died…
I forgot the crashes – maybe my mind trying to protect me again? I witnessed 5 crashes, two spectacular, and heard three others – one in a tunnel, which has to be one of the worst sounds ever, all that alloy and carbon mangling on the asphalt, riders shouting – nightmarish. I came close to crashing three times, the worst on the last lap in the pitch black middle of a tunnel, when an Iranian PTP rider went down straight in front of me – I didn’t see it but I heard it – and felt his tire brush the side of my knee as I scraped past centimeters from the curb. Anyway, we live to fight another day…
Stage Two
Ugh. That should say enough. Today was The Big Stage. Not so long at 121kms, but three climbs, one at 11kms and a steady 8% average, the other one climb we went up twice, maybe 2.5kms at about 10% average. Again the Kazakh Train at the front driving us along at devilish speed, and no let up on the final climb. I lost contact with the leading group of 28 riders, but only just, and had two guys behind me as we crested the last climb, so I sat up a little to allow them to catch me in the hope that the three of us working together would allow us to catch the front group. Then, almost as soon as they get on my wheel I hear a bike go down on the soaked road. And then another – Great. 20kms on my own over the hills to the end, I lost 2mins12secs overall. I slipped from 14th to 22nd. Not a good day. Iglinsky won again.
More painful than picturesque, believe me.
Hung out to soak.
The night before Stage Three... I feel odd. I don’t get spooked but, when we drove over the course this afternoon, the tight bends, lots of road furniture, ruts in the road, bumps, and the rain, I don’t know, I got this feeling that tomorrow will not be good. All I need to do is to finish in the main group to pull off what for me will be a great result, but the course looks fast, and dangerous. I ask myself why am I doing this? I don’t get paid. Almost all the other guys do. Maybe that’s a good enough reason – beating them feels pretty good.
Stage Three
Legs felt suspiciously good pre-race. Got a great massage from Mr. Yamada yesterday. Still felt nervy at the line though. Sun was shining for the first time in 4 days. There was a malicious little KOM sprint up the course’s longest climb, a one km drag up by the ocean – we hit it 11 times though, so it got bigger each time. The organizers put in two KOM sprints, one after 88kms, and the other after 2kms! So off we went, quicker than ever, and hit the climb. I decided I’d better get up near the front so I went up the outside and to the front, and I stayed there – I got the sprint. Three other guys joined me and we out in a mini-attack but no one was too committed, it was too early.
Each time round the finish line I tried not to look at the laps to go sign as I was suffering. I just wanted it to end! Again and again we went up the hill and with every climb the lead group thinned out more and more. We were chasing a 4-man break but they never got more than 40secs, and it all came back for the last 2 laps. The penultimate time up the climb I was sure I was going to blow, but as I started passing guys who were coming backwards fast I got a second wind from somewhere. It’s amazing how the suffering of others can pick you up! That’s not a particularly nice thing to say I suppose thing to say but anyone who’s raced will know what I mean. There’s an odd sustenance to be gained from seeing people in greater states of pain than you.
Anyway, despite struggling still to hold the wheel of the guy in front I made it to the final straight, and I guess I could have put more into the sprint but to be quite honest I was just overwhelmed to have made it so far, and with the best riders in Asia. I came in 30th of the 32 man group, same time as the winner… Iglinsky!
The loveliest sight to any racer – the chequered flag!
Autopsy
I ask myself after each event - What did I get from this race? Well, I learned that my capacity for slogging it out til the end is greater than I expected. I went deeper into my reserves – possibly beyond them, actually – in such a way that I was a little scared the night before each day’s racing, knowing that to hang on I’d have to dig that deep all over again. It’s quite daunting. And racing like that just increases the respect I have for the real pros. You understand just a little more of what they go through, even if you’ll never fully comprehend it.
I got home and googled Fofonov. Turns out he was 19th in the 2008 TDF. Then got fired by Credit-Agricole for having used a banned product during the race. Which is nice…
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