Early Birds Road Race Report
January 25th, 2010 |
Sounds like the Early Birds Road Race was a wet mess this weekend – but it also sounds like everyone had a great time.
From Joshua T:
Mission had another outstanding weekend of racing. Eugene, Alex, and I raced the Elite 5 race, Derek and Appel raced the Masters Cat 5, and Heather the women’s Cat 4. When we got there, it started raining so it looked like another crappy race. The roads were covered in mud, and washed out, so we were immediately eating mud, rainwater, and riding over bad pavement. It was like our own mini-Paris-Roubaix. A break took off immediately but nobody chased. Oddly enough they actually ended up winning our race. The climb was kind of a false flat for most of the race, and then it got really steep for the last mile or two. Our group shed a ton of people before we even hit the steep part. Eugene took off, and was at the front of the group up the steep part. After the climb, I found some big guys to work with, and we were crushing it the entire way back. We passed a bunch of people, and ended up picking up others, until we were about 14 deep. People were sliding around the corners because of the wet roads, and that may be one of the sketchiest descents I’ve ever done. Then two Taleo guys started attacking our group, so we ended up shedding more people. It was me and five other guys at the 200 meter mark. I followed my friends advice and sat on a wheel for the first 50 meters, and then had my sprint. I ended up winning the sprint out of that group. I’m not sure on the placing as we were wet, cold, hungry, and covered in mud, so we just wanted to go home. Eugene had to have been top five or ten. I saw Alex as I was descending but I’m not sure how he did. The whole pack was splintered all along the course.
I saw Appel after the race, and he said he did well. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Derek or Heather. I’m also interested to see how Jay did.
Overall I think road races, or at least this one, are WAY more fun than crits. That’s the most fun I’ve ever had on the bike. In a super fast pace line with some big guys for 22 miles was a huge rush. I can’t wait until the Snelling Road Race. I added some after photos to the Mission Flickr Pool. Just to give you an idea of how muddy we got: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9799897@N08/4298111993/in/pool-missioncycling
I think we may have beaten Danno, and Jonathon in the who’s the muddiest after a race competition…
From Eugene:
Appel got 5th, I got 10th and [Joshua] got 11th.
And another one from Jay:
Category: Masters 35+ 4/5
Result: 3rd
Dipshit meter (scale of 10): 8
Pretty nasty out there, especially at the start. I rode Masters 35+ because the roads were wet and muddy and I find the “more mature” crowd to be more risk averse, especially in inclement weather. Popular category today, maybe for that reason, and they had to split the Masters field into two groups.
If you haven’t done this course before, it’s great for climbers. Out and back. Starts with a long, barely perceptible climb for about an hour or so, then a fairly steep climb for about 20 minutes that usually blows the pack up. You usually summit that climb, do a short decent, then turn around and go back the
way you came. This year we turned around at the top of the punchy climb.
Pack stayed together until the bottom of the big hill. I have pretty decent hill legs at the moment, so I just spun up and dropped the pack – nobody went with me. Put about 45 seconds to a minute on the trailers. Hit the top, got some food, and hit it on the decent. I rode pretty hard solo for about 25 minutes, but there was a pretty brutal headwind and I didn’t think I could hold off a pack of chasers, so I slowed a bit. Shortly after a group caught up – six in total, oddly three riders a piece from two teams. Hmmmm, interesting.
The group was pretty disorganized, and nobody wanted to pull. I tried to get the six of them to pace line, but they all looked at me like I was a moron. Two riders from one of the teams weren’t rotating at all – both looked like sprinters. I decided to just hang at the back, since I was the odd man out. After about 10 minutes or so, nobody would go up front at all, and we slowed to a crawl. Both the opposing teams were just sizing each other up. I hung at the back, not quite sure what to do.
Here’s the dipshit moment. One guy takes a pull, nothing major, but then suddenly springs forward, and a guy from the other team jumps with him. The four guys in front of me just sit there, and I didn’t jump around them, mostly because I was thinking “those two aren’t going to work together, they’re just dicking around.” Mistake. Pretty shortly they’re a few hundred yards in front of us. I started pulling, but the two of them apparently quickly made a pact and were working together. Even if I could have caught them, it would have taken everything I had left. None of the other four guys would work with me – each had a potential winner up front. Fuckity.
So then I just went straight to the back, cursing myself. Rode with the four of them for another 20 minutes or so, and jumped on the small hill finish to take 3rd. Not a bad result overall, but a stupid mistake.
Lesson here for me: always cover the breaks when you’re solo.
Impressive work, y’all.
2 Comments to “Early Birds Road Race Report”
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Jan 25th, 2010 at 9:30 am |
It was not a weekend for the white kit. Nice hard-as-nails riding everyone. You all kick ass. |
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Jan 25th, 2010 at 1:39 pm |
Results got posted. Heather got 8th! |
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