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| Arianna at the Start |
After showing up to Willow late and Arianna missing her start time, we rolled out early to make sure we had plenty of time. The weather was perfect and the reports on the course conditions were that they were as good as dirt country roads were going to get. After a tire pressure discussion… low for comfort, high for pinch flat protection, I split the difference and warmed up. Arianna was pretty nervous about the mass start, but was excited to do her second race on her road bike. I told her to just try and stay on a wheel as long as possible and then ride the rest of the course as fast as she could.
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You can see me hiding about 3/4 of
the way back |
I ended up starting in the middle to back of the 50 man field (Not where I wanted to be). As soon as we hit the dirt, the guys at the front of the race where on a mission and I was struggling to keep with the lead group. There was a pretty large group of AAVC guys along with another team in a black kit... not sure what the name was. On the second lap, the Assemacher guys put in an attack at the RR crossing which pretty much shredded the field... I almost dropped out of the lead group during this as my legs were dead, but I said “Shut up”. The group was usually pretty chill on the final stretch of road on each lap, due to the head wind, which gave some recovery and allowed me to advance my position. Everyone must have been tired on the last lap as the pace eased up and most of the attacks were easily covered... except one which ended in the winning break of 2. The pack chased a little but no one had it in them to chase it down. As the pack rolled down the final stretch I was sitting in the top 10. No one went "really" early, but the Greyhound train jumped first (Although it didn't last long) and I started to find wheels to jump on. I latched on to Terry Bishop from TCC as I recognized from the velodrome and he seemed to have a diesel like motor. This allowed me to maintaining a good position towards the front of the pack. I saw the pack start to ease up and Terry hesitated a second, then just put his head down. Another guy pulled up to my right and as soon as I saw some guys to my left, I put the hammer down. Guys were popping left and right... a big guy dieseled by and I put in one more effort and managed 3rd in the pack and 5th overall.
It was probably the hardest RR, I have ever done. It was a Crit pace for most of the race...
Arianna said she stayed with one guy and then hammered the rest out. She must really be pro, as when we passed her, she had her team car following!
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| Only girl in the field! |
It was cool to see a lot of Trails Edge guys out at the race!! Congrats to John Osgood and Todd Greene for having great performances in CAT5… hope to see you guys at more races!
