WACO NCS 2004 #1
Race Report
by Jason Sager
teamhotelsanjose.com

March 14, 2004

With four races in four days there’s more to tell than time to write.

Marathon.

We got lost. 40 minutes of riding in circles, standing around, reading maps, making pit stops, giving up and then finding the trail.

If I never ride through another cowpoo fed muddy water crossing again I won’t be disappointed. This race ended up being a lot more work than I thought, only to find out there was one guy who didn’t get lost and was already done when I still had ten minutes left to race. 4 hours of racing and the last two hours were harder than a normal XC event. By the time I got back to the hotel to eat and change, it had been almost 10 hours since I’ve eaten anything besides gels and drink mixes. Long day…How often do you do a hard 4 hour road race before a mtb stage race?

Highlights – after getting lost, I didn’t plan on finishing, I was simply going to ride the lap then chill for the rest of the weekend’s racing. Only when Tinker and Eatough picked it up did I have to make a choice – either pull out and quit, or try to win it.

TT – It feels good to get on the bike, I’m only marginally sore, but I feel more like you do after a heavy night of drinking, or a car wreck. Worked.

I took two laps of the TT course to warm up, rapping with Tilford as he showed me all the new lines that have evolved, I knew it would be a quick TT – and those are the worst as there’s no time to ease into it or slack. I didn’t have a choice though. I started slow and really didn’t have much to offer but somehow ended up 8th. I was really baffled.

Highlights – I caught my minute man and was worried about passing him, but he was really cool and probably has poison ivy now from going so far off the trail for me. Tilly’s trail “shortcuts” were great and after seeing video of the TT, it looks like everyone started taking the new lines. They were taped off for the XC.

STXC –Here’s where having a good call up makes a difference. There’s a spot for me on the front row but I go for the 2nd row behind JHK and next to Roland. Good company as those guys can race these pretty well. The first lap isn’t too crazy but going into the hill on the 2nd or 3rd lap I see a gap with Ryder and Seamus rolling away. Am I really about to do this? I jump to the front and drop it into the 11t just to see what’s going to happen (thanks Alex for the hard tail!). Turns out Kabush has taken a ride up to the front with me and when we make contact with what is now three Canadians, they instantly start giving me a hard time, wanting me to go to the front and pull. I’d like to pull, but I’m about 5 beats over what I should be considering there’s still a lot of racing left, so I decline and they start gapping me off….and jumping. It’s a perfect strategy as it keeps me from recovering enough to handle each of the attacks. About 12 minutes into the race, Kabush is zig zagging me all over the road and I can see the writing on the wall…we’re about 50m back from the other two and I know when he jumps I won’t have enough left to stay in the group even if I make it up there. So…he jumps and I have to ride a whole lap waiting for the pack to catch me. I sit in and search for a lung handup, but there aren’t any feed zones in STXC, so I try to cruise in without doing too much more damage.

Highlights – While getting ridden out of the break really stinks, and being slammed by Kabush on Velonews isn’t the coolest, when I went back to the pack and started looking around at who didn’t go across with me, the thought hit me…”what was I thinking??” There’s developing an atmosphere of “us” vs. “them” now, so look for the ‘Merican Mafia to represent at the next STXC. Its time to play their game out there.

XC – The legs are feeling a little better despite having them ripped off by Canadians every day. I’m a little worried that everyone will go buck wild on the start loop, but the pace is pretty tame and I even gave a spot away going into the woods the first time. The second time around the start loop, I eyeball taking the hole shot but decide against it…and slot into the woods around 8th. That was my first mistake.

I’m driving the bus on this group which is bad because I’m getting yo-yo’d as the pace changes going over climbs and into technical sections, but I’m still having fun – look who I’m riding with. I don’t belong in this group and these guys can ride their bikes no matter what terrain so its taking 101% focus to keep up in the twistys – its actually easier on the climbs and fire roads where you can relax and just pedal.

Somewhere in the woods Ryder slides out and I’m able to move up two spots in the train..nice. 60 seconds later I slide in a turn and I’m back in the rear again with Roland on my wheel. Going over the last 4 climbs – now its time to see if I’m going to stick in this group, but, its not that bad and we finish the lap with the whole group intact – 8 of us. Its like a road race going through the road lap, guys attacking and looking around, then attacking again. I could barely take a feed! Bishop asks how I feel and I’m comfortable, so I know that he’s about to make a move and is giving me a head’s up. Jim Slauson keeps making me laugh by yelling “no chain” every time I see him.

Second mistake – I enter the woods for the 2nd lap again pretty far back on the train. JHK and Bishop are driving the pace and I’m stuck behind Seamus and Roland who are cracking, but we’re still hauling so I don’t have much gas or terrain to pass…and the riders are starting to creep away, then it hits me – the Kanucks are blocking! Seamus lets me by, but Roland’s playing every card he has to keep me from passing. I finally got by with Hester on my wheel, but this is a tough course to make up time on and Ryder and Max are always just one corner away from me catching on. We hit the start/finish for the 3rd lap and now’s the time to bridge because I know I’m staying at the front of this race - but Hestler won’t work with me, as Max is his teammate and then there’s that whole maple leaf thing…they’re 20 seconds up hitting the woods for the 3rd lap and I know its now or never so I keep it in the big ring for almost every climb, trying to drop Helster and bridge up to the other guys – that’s 4th and 5th, just 10 seconds in front of me. I’m bringing them back, less than 5 seconds from Max’s wheel, basically racing flat out on every inch of the course, when I slide out in the exact same turn that I crashed in on the 1st lap. All that work has gone to waste, but I put it back together and I can see the two riders on every climb, I could hit them if I threw my bottle, but they’re not getting any closer.

Hitting the river trail towards the finish, I sit up a bit as I know I’m not catching the two in front of me and I can’t see anyone behind me – forgetting that this isn’t a TMBRA and there are guys charging through the field, riding the last lap faster than the first two laps. I dodged a bullet on this one as 7th place finishes only 9 seconds behind me.

Highlights-

The crowd is going absolutely nuts the entire race, the yells and whistles and bells are rattling our ears and you can feel it in your guts. On the climbs people are running next to us in the bushes screaming in our faces “SAGERSAGERSAGER”, its really deafening. Roland looks back at me at one point with a look that says “what is going on here??” Later when some guys are yelling my name to the tune of the LSU football fight song, Seamus says “ if they were yelling for me like that, I wouldn’t even need to pedal”, which sums it up perfectly. After the race JHK said that he always knew where I was because he could hear the crowd following me around the course. Sometimes I could barely focus through the cheering, yelling, bell ringing, and crazy comments people say – how can you climb up a 30% slope at 180bpm while you’re laughing?

All in all, it was a phenomenal weekend, beyond what I expected. I never imagined being able to ride at the front of a NCS much less do it here in Texas. It was really an honor to get to race wheel to wheel with the worlds best in front of friends, family, and fans. Congrats TMBRA and endless thanks to everyone who came out to race and supported me.

Thanks to Bicycle Heaven, Team Hotel San Jose, Power Bar, Cannondale, Adidas, Melinda, Jim, Terri, the Paynes, Robinettes, and everyone standing around in poison ivy to root for me!