Mission #2: Achieve a top ten position in a road race to earn a TT bike. Wooohooo!
A few notes on the race. I raced Mens 35+B which is made up of Categories 3-4-5. Why? I felt it would be useful to race with others from BCC Racing so we could stack the field and perform better than if we stayed in separate Category 4 and 5 fields.
The race was good, maybe even great. It would have been awesome had I stuck with the lead pack of 5-6 throughout whole the race. Team wise Adam was an incredible blocker in the pack during the first lap and Rogers was equally incredible pulling us back to the lead group during the second lap. I owe them a lot.
I made it through the first lap with them although lost touch on the downhill which is sad. Five of us worked well together to catch up to them on the flats to yield a pack of nine. We then pulled in a constant rotation for the majority of the flats of the second lap.
If I made a mistake it probably was to actually contribute to the rotating paceline during the second lap. Contender guy even got "free rent in my head" as he was bitching about us not contributing. So after I finish eating some shot blocks during my short break in the rotation I get back to the rotation, and get to my turn, and they stop rotating. They leave me up front to pull for 1/4 mile or so, around the last turn, and for the first climb. I start the climb trying to be intelligent about my energy but they accelerate just enough to drop me and four others. Barely drop me, but enough for me to yell SHIT!.
They smell blood and accelerate a little more to create enough of a split that I could not reel in. I get passed by two others that are going a little slower and grab on to the wheel. I suck Alan-from-Bountiful-Mazda's wheel for a bit then notice we are remaining within grasp of the lead pack so the next little hill I bridge the gap. Almost. I was actually 1/2 way across the 70-100 yard gap and one of the lead guys turns around, notices us, tells the others, and they stand on it to increase the gap. Again just enough to be out of reach.
The remainder of the climb is spent with Alan which is a super strong guy that pulled most of the flatter areas of the climb. I hang with Alan until just after the Gap then he gets a little space between us. I really tried to reel him in during the last 300-400 meters and got relatively close but to no avail. It will be interesting to see how many seconds behind I was.
Gorgeous day. Warm, no wind, rubber side stayed down. Top ten. Success.
2 comments:
What was your time? USA cycling has your time at 2:33:51 which I don't think is correct.
My computer (and chart above) showed approximately 2:16. USA cycling is off by over 15 minutes which I am guessing is caused by the offset between the very first group to start and our group. These race results could very well be the worst I've seen; there are people tied for positions with 0:00 times, there are others listed as taking over three hours, yet are listed above others that have less time, there are people listed as DNF with times. WTF?
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