[GW] On notice after Durand

[Jeff Ingham]

The Cat 3/4 race went something like this.

 

Lap 1: Ride the whole lap as hard and as fast as you can, see the field go from 50 riders to 12 in the blink of an eye, but what the heck we made the selection.

 

Lap 2:  Lap 1 wasn't hard enough so go even harder, notice you're already running low on fluids with two more laps to go.  See 4 insanely strong riders ride off the front of an already fast moving group.

 

Lap 3: Hope that we can have an easy lap...nope, every roller is an attack to be covered.  Crack on the last roller, race over.

 

Lap 4: Ride until the first turn by myself and then DNF, finishing all by myself wasn't worth it in that wind.

 

Hardest race I've ever done.

 

Incidentally 4 laps on that course included over 4200ft of climbing.  That was one tough race.

 

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From: gophers-bounces at mcf.net [mailto:gophers-bounces at mcf.net] On Behalf Of Sara BrokawSent: Monday, April 23, 2007 11:00 AMTo: Gophers at mcf.netSubject: [GW] On notice after Durand

 

Womens OPEN

27 mi

Sara 6/30+

Sherry 7/30+

 

Sherry & I lined up with hoards (relatively speaking) of women including members from pretty much ALL local teams (Bellas, Peace Coffee, Birchwood, Flanders, Alan, SPBRC, Nature Valley) + a few others.  Goal of the day:  no bonehead moves.

 

Racing started right away with attacks from the start, but nothing really dangerous.  Fun to actually have a pack of riders, other people available to chase down riders.  We were having a real race.  Strong SSE wind slowed the group as we turned south, but noticed that we had shed riders over the first few miles..  Pack down to ~ 15 or so riders.  Helped with some pacemaking up the big 3 rollers on the backside to keep things under control.  Drifted back to seek some shelter (Sherry was toward the front), when suddenly a 20 m gap opened.  I was riding next to a B-wood rider who was trying to close the gap, towing 2 other B-wood & one Nature valley).  Notable absence of Nature valley up in the front group, and only 1 B-wood rider up front, led me to the decision that Sherry was there so we were represented if the break went up the road.  I did not try to close the gap because I suspected I would bring 3 B-wood ride! rs & nature valley back to the front of the race. 

 

The gap was never closed & the break was up the road.  Counterattacked a B-wood attack through the start/finish, attempting a solo bridge as we turned back east.  Eventually reigned back in by 2 Nature Valley riders (one had a dropped chain & had rejoined the race) + 1 B-wood.  Rotated a bit with these folks after spotting what appeared to be Sherry & another rider off the back of the original breakaway.  Since Gophers were no longer at the front of the race, I worked with a Nature Valley rider to get back to the front of the race.  When reaching two more riders who had come off the front of the race, I attacked to check their status (could we just ride by?), but was covered immediately.  Dropped to the back of this now 4-some waiting for the sprint.  When the sprint started, digging any deeper was not in the cards, so I rolled in 4th of this bunch for 6th overall.  I actually thought we were sprinting for 5th place! , but had I known we were sprinting for 3rd, I might have played some cards differently.  Satisfying day, however, with no bone-head moves.  Just need to work on that math thing now...counting riders up the road.

 

Results are quite funny:

http://www.cvccbike.com/node/76

I heard we had another top 10 from the guys...good gopher day.

 

Thanks for reading.

Sara

 

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