On Apr 23, 4:57 am, Colin Campbell <
[email protected]> wrote:
> I'd hate to think you went to bed without filing a report!
It was a beautiful 13C (55F) sunny, and only a slight breeze. Perfect
conditions. Lots of folks were optimistic about the temperature and
rode in shorts and short-sleeves. I figured no reason to deep-freeze
my knees, so wore some nice cozy tights. This year's first shorts ride
will have to wait a few weeks.
The race organizers are trying to get a primitive category system in
place. It's voluntary, so I don't think it is going to work. But I
figured I'd do my part to try to convince folks that group 2 could be
fun and have some real racing if enough folks admitted to themselves
that they were outclassed in group 1. Group 1 started with a large
field, and perhaps due to the fine conditions, not that many got
dropped. At least not compared to the race a few weeks ago where
almost everyone got dropped. The high number of finishers in group 1
yesterday doesn't bode well for increased participation in group 2
next week. Oh well.
Anyway, about 15-17 were in group 2. A mix of old farts, weaker
juniors, and women. I like to think I was the odd man out...
We ran 3 laps of 15km. Some of the women got things started, and set a
good pace, and most everyone tried squeezing into one line. Some of
the juniors clearly were not using their brains as they tried to
squeeze in on my position. They couldn't ask for a better place to
draft than behind me, why would they try to get in front? I tried
gassing it a few times after the hills to see how everyone felt. They
would zoom up the short hills and then practically stop at the top.
That's when I'd push it. Most were able to keep my wheel. Then I just
sat back and waited while some of the others tried some moves. One of
the shorter hills is after a descent of sorts, which I hammered each
time so I could use momentum and a gap to take it easy on the hill.
Nobody had any chance of keeping up down there.
On the last lap, people started attacking every few hundred meters. It
was mostly the juniors, and I let the other juniors close the gaps. It
was an uphill finish with a steep section 1km from the finish then a
short flat section maybe 100m, then maybe 3-4% the rest of the way.
Since some of the juniors seemed like they could just dance up the
steep hills, I was wary of trying to sprint uphill against them. So at
2km to go, I jumped. It was 50m from a turn, and everyone was sort of
looking around as they had just chased down one of the juniors. As
they were setting up for the corner, I jumped, sailed through the
corner, and jumped again. Before I knew it I had 100m on them. I got
as low as I could, on the rivet and gave it all I had. After 1km of
this at 1km to go, setting up into the final left hander which leads
to the steep part of the finish, I looked back and saw they were
spread out but still 100m back. Up the steep part, they got close, and
I sat up on the flat section, figureing they had me at any moment. I
looked back again, and saw heads hanging. They had pretty much stopped
when they saw I stopped, but a gap was still there. They are wasted I
thought, and jumped again. This time I opened up big in the final
500m, but 2 guys weren't completely wasted, and they flew by with
100m to go. I looked back, saw the others still way back, and rolled
across casually to 3rd.
In retrospect, I should have just waited for a sprint and pretended to
be Boonen, not tried a flyer like Cancellara. Given the way things
shook out, I see I would have crushed them in a sprint. We averaged
about 35km/h. Group 1 averaged 39 over 4 laps.
Now the trick is to get more (and faster) folks to join group 2. If
group 2 doesn't get more folks, I'll go back to getting dropped from
group 1.
Joseph