Friday night, I was thrilled to get to Boone to meet Lisa as her internship/clinical is over and it's been a long ten weeks (mostly) apart. I got everything loaded up ASAP and started on the haul on 421. About at the Parkway, things looked sketchy, and about another five miles, the skies opened up. First rain, then heavy fat drops, then hail. Hmm, bike on the roof exposed to hail (would insurance cover that?). Once I got to the hotel, checked everything out and it was golden, no worries. Lisa was already there so we did a quick unload and headed to Sorrento's for Dinner...a hefty helping of lasagna later and I was satisfied.
Erich showed up a bit after we got back to the hotel so I went to chat with him about strategery for a few minutes. Fast Forward: Bed...awake...breakfast. We then decided to drive the course to check it out. I have to admit the course was intimidating, especially the descents. After the getting the lay of the land (hilly) it was time to check out of the hotel and get changed and ready. Then, back to the start to meet up with Mitch. Quick warm-up after registration was just the thing to calm the nerves. Then, to the start line. And onto the race:
The start was relatively calm. We got about 5 miles out and into the first little climb and someone attacked...for about a half mile, then ended back up in the pack. Interesting. The pace really ramped up on the rest of the climb, and I found myself a good rhythm. The field pulled apart pretty quickly, and all of the sudden we had about five or six guys less than we started with. Onto the first descent, and things got very hairy. There were quite a few extremely sharp turns, at inoportune times, with an inordinate amount of cinders and gravel on the descents. We were riding two up and everything was pretty chill on the descents everyone choosing their lines carefully, until we got to the first sharp turn. There was already carnage in the corner from a race that took off about 15 minutes before ours. The guy along with a few others were down in the ditch with bikes strewn about. As we break into the apex of the corner, dude (who is now on the Mafia's short hitlist, beware the piano wire garotte, the icy hand in the dark) tried to thread the needle between me and the guy beside me forcing me into the cinders. My front wheel slid out and I headed straight for the ditch at about 20ish mph. Not good. I wish I could have been witness to what happened next but somewhere in my ancestry there must live a humble ninja. I managed to hop down into the ditch about a foot and a half below, ride next to the road in the ditch and slow down. I finally had to slam on the brakes as there was nowhere to go because of an abanoned bike from the aforementioned wreck. All this happened while I watched the lead pack disappear around the corner on the next climb. I unclipped, picked up the bike, carried myself back in the road and took off. I knew that if I didn't catch them in the next three miles, I could kiss any chance of a top ten goodbye because of the long flat section up next. I burnt through a ton of matches, passed a few dropped riders and caught back up to the leaders. The pace quickened up and over another crest, then onto the fun part.
A ten mile stretch of mostly flat/rolling section of pavement. We were cruising along at about 26-32mph. Once at the end of this section the pack of about 20 was still all together, but the grade steepened and I didn't have the legs to follow. Now, I knew that if I was suffering others were too (I could hear Erich's words echoing in my head). I knew that if I rode hard, I could pick off a few riders here and there as they dropped off the back. I was able to muster passing about four or five of those in my race, along with some of the guys from the previous races. On up to the fiish, and the race was over...16th place, out of 25. disappointment. The course was incredibly hard, but the riders were also very strong, I was impressed. Erich and Mitch both rode very strong, and had some ridiculous competition, but they were both able to muster good finishes!
Post finish:
You'd have thought the dog raced today:
1 comment:
Solid work on a hard course with tough competition...just means we need to go climbing this weekend.
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