Lake Sunapee Road Race

[jraguin]

Jeremy and I made the trip up and raced the 40+ Masters. 2 laps, 46 miles. 65 or so guys in the field. Lots of studs, lots of teams.

My plan was to sit in as much as possible, try to get a top 20. Things start off hot, people trying to create breaks, with lots of blocking by their teammates. These breaks are chased down. I am just hanging around the front 1/3 of the race, top 20 wheels. Somewhere on the backside of the first lap where the rollers are and the road is bad, I notice I let myself fall back to probably 35-45th. I realize this is bad but the road is narrow and hard to move back up. It is around there I see what I think is 6-7 guys go off the front. Other guys aren't chasing, so I think maybe it isn't a strong group. I also think it is early and we can catch them with the firepower in the field.

What I realize is that CCB, First Stop / Vermont Castings, Suburu, Corner Cycle, and another team or two must have guys in the break, because they just keep blocking. They chase anyone who tries to work, or stick themselves in the paceline and when they get to the front they just lollygag. I feel badly for Mike Rowell, Tom Francis, and a couple of other guys who are trying to work to catch the break, so I give up my original strategy and decide to help chase down the break. I start doing a bunch of work at the front with those guys, as does Jeremy. But the same thing keeps happening to us. We get in some semblance of a paceline, and either I end up behind a blocker, or I end up taking my pull and pulling off, and no one comes through. Even with this, about 1/2 way through the second lap I see we are closing and I think we are going to catch the break. But the blockers continue their approach and there are just not enough people at the front willing to work. Finally, I resign myself to that we are not going to catch the break and I need to save some matches to ensure I get in any other break. With not much left in the race, Jeremy and I just stay right near and on the front. We do far more work than we should, but I figure we might as well get a workout in. We come up to the second to last hill and Jeremy are on the front, Jeremy giving me some wise advice not to chase two guys up ahead. A group goes down the right to chase those strays and Jeremy and I jump on for the rocket to the finish.

We go around the rotary and we both take not a great line on the inside. We hit the finishing climb and people are exploding. Everyone is trying to stay in a draft or survive. I decide to forget the draft and move up. So I go up the left side, then cut over to get a draft as the road turns, and give my best sprint to finish up the climb. I think I finished 4th of the chase pack. So I am pretty happy with that. But then I find out it was TWELVE guys who got off in the break. I am mad about that, but as Jeremy said, I am not sure how much we could have done. I am guessing I finished around 16th.

Bottom line: Teamwork works. Those guys really raced as a team. Hats off to CCB, First Stop/Vermont Castings, Suburu, and a few other teams for blocking like pros. Their teammates got away and stayed away.

[rusto]

Excellent job, John, given what you were up against!

[JeremyC]

The old guys are fast and the race was aggressive. I've never seen so many attacks. I was covering them early, got in a mini break, missed the real break, covered 100 other attacks especially at the end. None of them got away, burned a crap load of matches and suffered in the sprint. Finished 5 or 10 back from John who looked strong at the end. No regrets, we can hand with these guys, just need to be SMAHHHTER about which attacks to follow.

[jraguin]

Turns out I was 14th and Jeremy was 22nd. We were 1:19 behind the break group by the end.

[ahamilton]

Sounds like you guys had the legs for the race, but needed more teammates and/or other teams that missed the break. If you do more Masters races you'll quickly get to know the guys to watch because there is a smaller pool of old guys than young guys, so the cast of characters is often the same from race to race.

[PJ McQuade]

Nicely done, guys, tough field and you two were right in the mix.