Tour De Murrieta

The Tour de Murrieta, the beginning, where everything started for my life as an amateur cyclist. I still remember signing up last year thinking that I would finish with the pack and could possibly have a shot to win the race. I signed up for a circuit race not understanding what that meant and had no idea what a big ring roller meant.


I have learned a lot in a year. I learned that racing is a lot faster than the average person thinks. I learned that average speed is useless. Most races surge repeatedly so it doesn’t matter if you can ride at 23mph for an hour. The question is can you jump up to 28mph then slow down to 20mph for a minute before jumping back up to a high speed.


I was pretty confident going into the TdM this year. I signed up for all three events. I got in touch with all my teammates to see if they wanted to develop a plan of attack. I went and pre-rode all three courses and felt really confident. I did pretty well at Ontario the week before and I thought it was going to be a good weekend.


I talked to Saul Rasin on the phone for a little bit about how to attack the weekend. He is a former pro cyclist and is full of knowledge. I decided to park near the start house on Friday and warm up on the trainer. The other option was to park near the finish line so that you didn’t have to make the 20 mile ride back to the start line.


I decided to take the advice of several riders and I started warming up earlier than I did last year. I used to warm up for about 15-20 minutes. Lately I have been warming up for about 30 minutes. I decided to warm up for about 45 for the Time Trial because I expected to be finished with the course in about 13 minutes.


I felt like I had a good workout and I was ready to go. I started to head house but you had to go through some water to get there. I had just got over the hill and I managed to flip over the handle bars and face plant into the road. It felt super slow going down but I was moving pretty quick. There was another rider right there and I jumped up and asked him if the cut was bad. He gave be a shocked look and then said yes.


I quickly rode to the ambulance and had them put a bandage on my face. I looked at my bike and there was blood everywhere, my gloves were bloody, and I could see blood drops on the ground near the ambulance. I kept yelling for them to hurry because my start time was coming up.


They finished and I sprinted to the start line. I heard them calling my number and I was trying to yell to let them know I was coming. I got to the start line and they were already counting me down. The holder grabbed the bike and I got both feet clipped in and it was time to go. I started out fine but after the first small hill I realized that the tape restricted how much I could open my mouth to suck air.


Halfway through the course I started to feel the sting from the sweat running across the road rash. Everything started to hurt but I just pushed on. There was a 1 mile dirt section that was very steep. I sat up and pedaled but it wasn’t as fast as I know I could go. I was passed by two guys that started after me on that dirt section. I pushed as hard as my body would let me. The bike felt off but I couldn’t tell if it was the bike or me.


I got to the finish line and I was relieved to be done with that course. I rode to the dirt section and started to look at the bike. It was at that point that I realized that the fork was broken. It was cracked all the through and most likely was the whole way up the hill. I don’t know how it didn’t snap off on the off road section. I got a ride back to the start line since there was no way I was going to chance riding it back. This was my team’s race so I decided to put off the hospital and I worked my shift for the rest of the race.


After the finish of all the races I drove down to the start line and found Matt, the owner of I.E. bikes, to get my bike fixed. He put it in his truck and drove it to his shop. After I knew that the bike was going to be taken care of I drove over to urgent care. They cleaned me up and gave me 5 stitches, 2 in the crease of the lip and 3 in the lower part of my chin.


I immediately went to the bike shop from there to check on my bike. They replaced the fork with one from a women’s bike. They primered it white for me because the original colors were silver and purple. I tried to race on Saturday but everything hurt. It hurt to get out of bed that day but I wouldn’t admit it. I warmed up but way shorter than normal because I wanted to save the pain tolerance for the race. The race didn’t go well. I had a bruise on my chest that made it hard to breath, one on my knee that made it hard to stand and pedal and bruises on both wrist that caused me to cringe with every bump in the road. I only made it half of the race before I was spit out the back and pulled off the course.