Season's last bike races: Lake Desolation Hill Climb and Mengoni Grand Prix

I say this once a year: Stick a fork in me, I'm done. With two last races over the weekend, I'm officially calling an end to my 2011 road season. I'm hoping to race the training crit Thursday, but otherwise, I won't turn a pedal in competition until 2012, unless it's on a 'cross bike.

It's been an interesting season. I had some good rides in the spring, and I had an injury, and I had some bad rides in the summer, during my big comeback. In some ways, it's too bad the season is ending: With the Green Mountain Stage Race in my legs, I was actually starting to feel some form returning, just in time for the bike reg listings to thin out to nothing. The end of the season is bittersweet. I love racing my bike, traveling to races and seeing friends from all over -- and I miss it all when it's done for the year. But, I'm tired. It'll be nice to have less pressure to train and travel.

As for this weekend's races, there were no great success, only great failures.

OK, that's a bit of an overstatement, it was actually a pretty good weekend of racing.

Saturday's race, the Mengoni Grand Prix in Central Park, was a moderate success insofar as I didn't crash on the rain-slicked 6-mile circuit. The race was really fast, and more than a few fast guys were going out that back of the single-file peloton. I was happy to sit in. I hit the front once, on the second to-last lap, when there was a small group dangling off the front. Of course, there was no help on the chase, so I quickly returned to the safety of the peloton. There was a break up the road, which appeared to not be coming back. Indeed, it did not come back, and the winner came in about 14 seconds ahead of the group sprint. There was a crash in the sprint, which I was happy to avoid, while coasting in mid-pack.

I don't get to race in Central Park too often, but I really do think it's one of the most fun circuit races I've ever raced, owing to near-constant smallish power climbs, combined with fast flat sections and an uphill finish that can suit non-sprinters in certain situations. Plus, as I noted on Facebook, there always lots of attractive women running and riding in the park, even at 6:30 a.m., when the start pistol goes off.

Sunday's race was truly a failure. This was the Lake Desolation Hill Climb, an event I'd won in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Needless to say, I had an interest in defending my title -- so much so that I threw together a spur-of-the-moment plan to drive to Saratoga for a quick, overnight visit (I thought the race was in October, it's traditional date). In so doing, I missed an exciting trip to the Sands Casino -- that was how much my title meant to me.

The record for the 4-mile Lake Desolation climb is 16:20, set in the late '80s by Davis Phinney, when he was in town visiting Serotta. Of course, Phinney probably doesn't remember setting the record, or know that we all still look up to him. But we do. Legend holds that Phinney, a sprinter by all rights, rode the climb with three team mates on the day he set the record. The modern hill climb, organized by Aaron of Tinney's Tip Top Tavern, bears little resemblance to that ride. Instead of three people, as many as 30 take the mass start at the bottom of Lake D, starting the clock as they roll over a bridge at the bottom of the climb, and racing to the bridge at the top, across from Tinney's and on the banks of the lake.

When I was at my best as a cat 3, in the two seasons that saw me earn my elite upgrade, I regularly spent afternoons riding up and down the challenging climb, and I sorely miss having climbs of that length and difficulty down here in PA. Once I got a flat halfway up, and, discovering I was without a spare and without a cell phone, made a fast friendship with a fellow transplanted Brooklyn Jew who happens to live on the hill. Last fall, I won the event with a time of 17:21, after sprinting away from the fly-weight upstart Nick, from somewhere out near Johnstown. It was quite a bit slower than Phinney, but it was one of the faster times ridden by a mere mortal, it was my fastest time to date, and was my hardest-fought Lake D win.

On Sunday, I expected Nick to again be my greatest challenger, and I knew that he had enjoyed a productive season as a cat 4 and had earned his cat 3 upgrade. I know that because the night before the hill climb I spent several hours drinking with friends from the Saratoga cycling community who were all too eager to dish about who was fast and who was not, in addition to expounding on a number of other topics. Of course, Nick, who is just a kid, was probably in bed as we were cracking open another round, and another, which I'm sure did nothing for my chances the next day, but it was a lot more fun than an early bed time. Of course, all of my slightly older friends were quick to remind each other and me that he might weight 120 pounds, when he's dripping wet. I was probably the next-lightest male rider on Sunday's start line, and I weigh 160 pounds, depending on how many cookies I'd eaten on the previous night.

On Sunday, the race got off to a lackadaisical start with no one seeming to want to take the initiative. Nick must have known he was the favorite, because he got to the front as soon as we hit the first of the steeper slopes and started turning a big gear. Zack, who won the spring hill climb in June, got on his wheel and I sat on Zack, having determined that after my up-and-down season, a defensive approach would be best for me.

Nick set the pace as we climbed past the farm that marks the start of the most difficult pitches, and that's where Zack started to come undone. I sprinted to get onto Nick's wheel, and Nick betrayed his inexperience by complaining that no one was pulling through. No shit, no one's pulling through: A minute later we climbed past the quarry and I came off the wheel. We were close to the top at that point, so I thought I'd be able to recover over the top, accelerate up the rollers to catch the kid before the finish.

Unfortunately, I'd already overtaxed myself -- my Garmin told me later that I'd ridden at or above 490 watts for more than 10 minutes at the point where I'd been dropped, with my heart ticking along between 198 and 208 beats/minute. I dragged my ass over the last roller and turned the biggest gear I could muster, but I'd been so thoroughly beat on the climb that catching Nick was out of the question. His winning time was 16:46, and I hit the bridge 40 seconds later to take second.

I'm sad to have lost my crown, but heartened that it was a good race and that I lost in fair fight. Chapeau, Nick! Congrats. I'm coming for you in 2012.