UCLA Road Race

Written by: Bill Lupo

The UCLA RR course is a climber’s delight:

One 12.55 mile lap includes a 6%, 2.6-mile climb, followed by a 5.3-mile fast descent at 5.2%, and then a 0.85 mile 6% finish. You get just over 1400 feet of climbing per lap. Depending on your race category you get to repeat this a few times, for my category that meant 3 laps.

As everyone knows I’m not a climber so what do I do, I enter a climbing race.

After a 6:15 am departure, I find myself pinning on not one but two numbers. Seems the organizers want one on your left side and one on your back. Taking the sage advice of the person who drove me there and not wanting to block my jersey pockets, I folded the back number and pinned it over the lower part of the pockets. Looks pro this way for what it’s worth!After a far too short and meaningless warm-up, I stage with the other climbers. It only took a moment for the moto official to comment that folding the number wasn’t allowed but Wilson was able to offer a compelling excuse so it was permitted. Crisis averted!After instructions and a reminder about the rules. The usual, no puppy paws, no super tuck, and the centerline, which some people immediately ignored, we were off. Thinking back to my meaningless warmup I decided to ride the front as an attempt at warming up on course. This actually worked out OK, don’t tell my coach. I was with the lead group over the top, down the descent, and on the transition at the bottom. As it turns out I was positioned to foolishly go with an early break of five. We didn’t get far up the road, perhaps 40 seconds before we were caught about 60 seconds from the top and that’s when the 2nd break went. Fortunately for me, Lindsay was with that move so tried to recover and stayed with the pack.

As people were gapped off of that group, primarily due to the high-speed descent with a few potholes and ruts, that left the lead break with 4 people.

A few attempts to bridge didn’t amount to much other than reducing our chase group. With about 3K to go it was me, Lindsay, and three others.

A few surges started just after 1K, and not wanting to disappoint all the fans, I started a very late sprint, capping it off with a bike throw capturing 5th place. I hear there’s a grainy and poorly framed video of the finish for anyone interested 🙂