My final prep for the 2009 edition of the 112-mile Dick Evans Memorial Road Race was bike cleaning at 9pm and hitting the hay at 9:30pm. By far the earliest that I've got to sleep before DEMRR!

Race day started with my alarm going off at 3:45am, removal of compression socks, stuffed my bike, wheels, and other required goodies into the car, then drove over to the start area at the Hawaii Kai park+ride.

After piecing together the bike, picking up my timing chip, and dropping off spare wheels to Mech 1, I planted my ass on the curb and waited for the race start instead of standing up on the start line for 30 mins.

The race always starts with 30 miles of neutral (20+mph) to the base of Kunia usually accompanied by a sprinkling of precipitation. This year it managed to stay unusually dry for the entire neutral ride which was nice. After making the right turn onto Kunia, the red flag went up, and the race was on! I decided to get the party started with the first attack, quickly getting a gap on the peloton, but with two chasers - John Flannigan (Fresh from his 6th place in an Ironman the week before) and a younger rider that I've never seen before. After they had latched on, I looked back to see if either would come through and take a pull, but no such luck. I decided to just press on with throwing down the watts and see what happened, and after 5mins or so at 400w I was solo again. I build up a sizeable gap to take the win comfortably head of a chasing Flannigan who had dumped his previous company. After waiting up for Flannigan, we shared some pulls while discussing the possibility of attempting a 2-man breakaway to the finish. Having tried this plan of attack unsuccessfully for the past few years, I decided it would be best to slowly drift back to the peloton and regroup for the second half of the race. Wow, racing with my head vs. brute force... WTF!

We were absorbed by the peloton somewhere near Dole Plantation and cruised down Pineapple Hill to Haleiwa. After Haleiwa I put in an attack for fun, taking my team mate Casey Tucker along for the ride, then he rolled ahead into what ending becoming a 49 mile solo breakaway! Balsy!!!

Only a few mins later after Casey broke the elastic, I heard the sound of a pile up a few bikes back. When I turned around it looked just like the carnage at the end of Vuelta Stage 4... Lots of bodies and bikes on the deck. Supposedly, someone had slid out on a road marking (It was raining at this point) and taken out a bunch of people. Having crashed on August 2nd, I felt lucky to have avoided that one!

As Casey got down to business speeding off into the distance, Pacific Velo rode the front of the peloton and keep the pace a little more leisurely, letting him build up some time.

The race was fairly uneventful until we hit the windward side... I tried a few moves to bridge up to Casey while not taking anyone with me... The most promising of those moves came when I got a gap with Alika Chee, but we were reeled in after a few minutes of trading pulls. The gap to Casey was coming down thanks to some work by Tradewinds and Quick Release. I avoided one crash before Kaneohe when one of my team mates and a rider from Tradewinds ate it on the shoulder in cross winds. After some weaving around and a quick sprint I was back with the lead group. After the feed at Valley of the Temples, Ray Brust was pushing the pace up the climb to Kaneohe, then again going over Mokapu'u. I just sat as much as possible spinning the 39 trying to save my legs for later.

After Mokapu we had the steep and rutted climb on Dump Road where I managed to drop my chain off the small ring, overshift it off the big ring, then got it back to the small ring. Luckily I made it over the climb without losing any time, after which we caught up with Casey on the Pali.

The next battle happened on Olomana. Ray Brust was pushing the pace on the first climb, then Thomas attacked on the second rise, but we all stuck together like glue. By the top of Olomana we had a group of 5 - Ray Brust, Alika Chee, Thomas Novikoff, Carl Brooks, and myself. The ride out of Olomana was straightforward for most other than Alike who took a fast left turn without turning enough = Riding the leaves! I thought he was going to die, but he made it back to our group. Only an hour or so earlier I had accidentally ridden him off the road onto the grass at Ka'a'awa...

Our group worked together fairly well on the backroads of Waimanalo, but I think everyone was trying to save their legs for Makapu'u and the finish. Thomas put in an attack which I responded to, but felt my legs cramping as soon as I stood on the pedals. Sit and spin, sit and spin!... Exiting 'nalo, we were still together, trading pulls, trying to maintain the 20-25sec gap we had over a small chase group behind.

There was no real attack on Makapu'u, but Brust was pushing the pace yet again. He crested first, me behind, followed by Thomas and Carl, with Alika clawing his way back on the descent!

At the base of Makapu'u Carl Brooks put in a strong attack but we reeled him back in. That one hurt... Thanks Carl! From that point in it was pretty much cat and mouse with everyone watching each other.

I think Thomas was the first to attack going into the final turn, which was where I made my move. All or nothing, empty the tank and hopefully get to the line first - which I did, by about 0.7sec. Finally, after many years of trying, I've added Dick Evans to complete my Hawaii palmares. It's the one race that I started to think I would never win, so it's nice to finally get it!

(l-r) Mike Zagorski, Alika Chee, Thomas Novikoff, Ray Brust, Carl Brooks

SRM File (Entire Race)

SRM File (Initial attack on Kunia) peaking at 950w, and averaging 434w for 3mins at 15.6mph and 185bpm.