Attendees: Myself and 4 actual teammates, Brent, Marcus, Geoff and Mark
Weather: 65 degrees with a nice breeze. Rained for about 3 minutes at one point during race.
Course: 44 miles comprised of two loops of 22. First 5-6 miles are pretty much downhill to a reservoir, then a sharp right to a pot holed road with a nice climb. This climb is actual 3 different sections with the second one being the longest by far. Grade is about 6-7%. Then rollers followed by a big downhill on new pavement directly into a two mile climb to start finish. This climb is a nice gradual climb of around 5% with one steeper section in the middle as it comes around the bend.
Prerace: It was nice to have company to warm up with. A tent even. Cool van (oh yeh that’s mine) and blasting tunes.
Race was for the New England Championships and it was a full 100 field. Started about 20 minutes late while the police were eating donuts. Kind of defeats the purpose of a warm up. At the start, I knew to stay up front. However, even in the easy section there were sketchy riders and I almost got knocked off the rode by a guy with a bike which couldn’t stop shaking. As we crossed the reservoir, I moved to the front few and as we took the first part of the first hill I easily moved to the front and led it over the first part. Now I only remembered two parts of the hill so I gave it all out to stay in the lead pack over the second section as I fell back to about 10th or so. However….I forgot the last part and this hurt my legs. I started to drift out of the lead group of now 25 or so and was about 5-10 seconds back. I wasn’t letting go this year like I had to last year. Brett and Marcus come up and grabbed the front group and worked for the next mile or two until I could tag on. Next bunch of miles were uneventful until some asshole knocked Marcus off the road and he slid down with all his powerblocks spread across the road. I gave the asshole in blue alot of shit for that. Anyway, on the big downhill I drifted back because honestly, I didn’t trust anyone in the group. This was a mistake because when we hit the big climb I didn’t have the protection of the group with me and I lost their pace. About half way up, I found mine and it was good but by that point, I wasn’t going to catch them. Anyway, I started picking up riders to work with and kept dropping them on the climbs. Finally, I found 3 others for the rollers into the downhill which was good for them since I did alot of the work. On the hill two of them went up ahead but I was feeling pretty good about half way up and I started hauling it. I passed both and gave them no opportunity to catch onto me. Finally, I almost caught the back of the front pack since there was one more guy about 5 seconds in front at the finish. In the end, probably top 30 and maybe top 25 or so.
One Comment
That’s pretty much my opinion of the race as well. Except I was badly placed before the first big climb and clawed my way up to the front group. But I lost more on the descent than you did, because I still haven’t learned how to descend. I was tracking the leading group pretty well for the first half of the finishing climb, but then they eased away from me. got in with a decent chase group on the back side, including Marcus who had made an amazing recovery from his crash, but lost their wheels again on the descent. And then my legs were cooked on the final climb. And to add insult to injury, I had to sprint for, and lost on the line to Greve who made an impressive charge up the final climb.