Minuteman Road Club

Me, Doran, Russ, Scott and John all showed for the 5's, in what was a full field of 50. Crashes everywhere, right from the start. Literally. I was leading out of the neutral zone just becuz, when...bang...a huge pile-up occurred at the back. Up the hill, half mile later, still quazi-neutral...bam...another crash. Lap 2, some guy next to me runs his front wheel into someone's rear skewer. clang. Seemed like every lap someone hit the deck. The whole race, all I heard was "HOLD YOUR LINE" and the clanging on bikes on pavement. Seemed like I was more concerned about going down than anything else, so I just stayed near the front.

I had good legs. I made a half-hearted attempt at a flyer with 6 to go (out of 8); up the hill hard. As expected, I got caught. I didn't put out too much in the effort. No one else made any moves. Just a whole lot of waiting...mostly for someone else to do the work.

2 to go, I'm sitting perfect. 3rd wheel and some guy makes a huge effort to pull the whole lap. I'm thinking "I wish this was the bell lap". Of course, my position wasn't nearly so good for the next lap. 2 turns to go, and I'm 10th...at best. Pace is a LOT higher. 4th wheel lets a gap go and 3 guys are pulling away. Patience isn't my strong suite. I move on the outside, bridging. Catch with about 50m to the base of the climb...so I decide to go around to be first into the final corner, and up the climb. Not a bad strategy, until I realized that I was forgot to upshift. I had to sit and shift halfway up the climb. Still, I'm burying myself up the hill. Max effort. tongue hanging out. 199 bpm. ouch. I went way too early. fading. first is gone. threat on the right. bike throw. pimped at the line by half a wheel. 3rd place. satisfied.

John had good legs too, as he was just behind me at the final turn. He apparently pulled out of his pedal though...more clanging & banging...and finished 15th. Scott was 21st. I was a really hard race. Not max effort from the gun, but really hard.

Stephen W raced the 3/4, and then jumped into the P/1/2/3. I watched a few laps of the latter and he was looking super strong, and there was big-time carnage in the field. Sorry I couldn't stay for the finish.

It was nice to have a group of MRC guys out there. We didn't talk much amongst each other, but it was still had a psychological boost to see each other.

To be honest, my race went almost perfectly, until 250 meters to the finish line. I knew this was going to be much more of a sprinters race and I didn't see how anyone was going to get away. So I hung back for the much of the race. I stayed between 20-30 riders back for the first 4 laps, and then got in my mind to move up a bit each successive lap which I did. I was basically avoiding all work. With 2 laps to go, I was in the front 10 wheels when we took the turn / hill on Circuit and a guy clipped my front wheel. I had to pop out of my cleat and put my foot down to avoid going down, but then had problems getting back into the cleat going uphill since I was a dead stop. I finally got clipped in and chased hard to get back on. Good thing I did since I saw (since I was off the back and chasing) at that point that we had separated to 20-25 riders and the rest of the field was well off back. I caught back up just over the hill. I did also see all 5 of us were in those 20-25 riders so I had a smile on my face.

Coming around the final 1/2 lap I came up next to Doug. We both said some words of encouragement since we hadn't seen each other as I was hanging further back while Doug had stayed near the front the whole way. Right then guys started pushing hard but I still felt calm about the situation. We came onto Forest and 3 guys tried to break. People were chasing but I felt confident we would catch them. Doug then came up the left and I went onto his wheel. The 3 guys who tried to break pulled up because none of them wanted to lead, so Doug with me in tow went by them like they were standing still (not exactly, but it still felt very pro). Doug hit the turn / hill right in front of me and I was thinking "we are in great shape" with 250 m to go up the hill to the finish, he and I wheel 1 and 2. Then I pushed down hard going up the hill and SNAP my cleat came out of my pedal. I scrambled to put it back in as a few guys went by me. I missed putting in a second time, and a bunch more guys went by me and I was basically at a dead stop. I finally got it in and pedaled hard to the finish line, but it was too late. As Doug said, I thought I came in around 15th.

Needless to say, I was not very happy with my luck. Pretty angry is probably more like it. I did a hard lap after basically by myself. Now that I have a more sound mind about me, I do think it was at least partially my own fault. I have used these cleats for a while now and noticed in the late spring that they were/are looking a worn. I never swapped them out, and maybe that was my undoing.

One more thing: In the race, I thought often of Bruce's comments about staying calm, "fire burning inside", and waiting for the right moment to unleash it. So although it didn't work out for me this race, I want to give Bruce a plug here for good advice as it would have worked if it wasn't for bad luck/equipment.

Johnn

For me, I have to take the good with the bad in this race: I was among or near the top 10 for nearly the whole race until the last time on Forest street when all the "sleepers" behind me woke up and got moving. If, as John says, our race was split in half, it seemed the whole front group engulfed me on the final climb which means I probably placed around 25th.

The good:

• stayed near the front for most of the race (the sounds of the early crashes reverberated in my mind for a couple of laps)
• kept my wits about me when some numbskull wouldn't hold his line ON A STRAIGHTAWAY and I had to put my hand on his hip to let him know he was drifting into me (I was directly behind another guy, so no room at the inn for him)

The bad:

• not enough warmup: the first time up Circuit Street sucked big time, shoulda done some short jumps to get the Type II muscles to be more ready
• spent too much time in the first three laps out in the wind - not in the lead, maybe 5 wheels back but to the side, pulling a bunch of lunkheads behind me - I should have worked harder to find a slot where I could rest up a bit
• my rear brake was rubbing (sigh) on the Circuit Street climb when I got out of the saddle, I couldn't tell if it was really slowing me much but I chose to spin my way up instead (the good thing was, except for the last time up, I didn't lose any places doing so)
• absolutely nothing left for that last climb up Circuit Street

Hard, hard, hard race. I never expected it to be so fast for the entire time. I think we averaged about 25mph? I think that I was the magnet for the crashes yesterday. Most, if not all of them happened next to me! The first one was awful-not sure if his hands slipped off the bars or what, but he literally went sideways to the right for no particular reason. Then a typical Cat-5-tastic (to steal shamefully from @resultsboy) crash going up the Circuit St. climb just a few minutes later....not sure why people have such a difficult time shifting beFORE the climb starts! There were at least two crashes due to this on the climb....to the good, the boys in blue stayed rubber side up.

All in all, it was a pretty fun course though - should have suited me better but the pace on the last lap crushed me. Did my best to get closer to the front to try and lead Doug and John out but it didn't matter. Russ and I came across the line cross-eyed and whimpering....

Another fantastic showing by Doug, John was right there as well.

On to Beverly!!

Great finish Doug. Wish we could have been there to lead you out, but with the fast pace and the narrow roads it was hard to be in the right place for any team tactics. Glad John survived the near crash on the short climb near the end - I saw it unfold in front of me. Rusto was impressive pushing the pace on the early laps and Scott was right in there until the final push up the short climb.

I managed to hang on to the back of the front pack and finished 25th of the pack of 28 riders - last of our group of 5 with Scott and Rusto just in front of me. I felt good on all the short climbs and was typically was making up ground on the first 6 of 8 until the next to last one (7th), then the final lap I had to ride very hard to hang on to the lead group aournd the next to last corner and then on the small S-turn road leading to the final, and then had nothing left for the final climb (8th). Ran out of water on the last lap too - didn't help. I was expecting some carnage on the final turn but very glad it didn't happen - thus I wasn't aggressive enough (didn't want to go down again like Attleboro).

I did this race twice before in Cat 5 (35+) and finished around 13th both times and the pace yesterday far exceeded those races.

Lessons learned: not agressive enough on the last lap and let too many guys slip around me pushing me from about 10th to 20th or so; don't run out of water; like Rusto - need to do a longer, more agressive warmup (at my age).