Sunapee Cat 4

[JeremyC]

Small MRC contingent, me, Scott Sweeney and Bill Turner. Fairly fast race, I bobbed around the peloton for the most part, felt OK but didn't have breakaway legs. Bill did a nice job sitting in the top 15 wheels for the entire race, making it look easy. Scott had another round of bad luck, breaking his chain 10 miles into the race and hitching a ride from the wheel van. 5 guys slipped off the front almost one by one and no one wanted to chase them down, including me. With 3 miles to go I was well positioned in the top 15 remaining wheels. Coming into the rotary, with the up hill finish, I tried to move into my small chain ring for the up hill sprint. Apparently my bike had other ideas and I lost about 30 places trying to heel it over and mistakenly unclipping. Unforced error as I could have easily big ringed it. Some how I made back about 20 places as the group was surprising suffering up the moderate climb. I'm guessing I finished around 30th, with Bill close behind. I may have cost myself a potential top 10 but its my own fault.

This would be a great race for a big MRC team next year. The hills aren't that selective so team tactics can play an important role.

[jraguin]

Sorry to hear the Scottish luck seems to have bit you both. @Jeremy: Similar thing happened to me last year at Norwell. A real bummer. Good race considering.

[BTurner]

Not knowing the course I decided to stay up front for the first lap just in case I needed to do the old pack slide on one of the climbs. With the wide roads and decent legs staying up front was not too much of a problem. On the second lap I sat back a bit to conserve energy as it looked like not much was going to happen until the end of the lap. A chase in between the two climbs put me in debt and I found myself in overload on the shorter, steeper second climb. I was able to work my way toward the front in the final few miles but being gassed I was only able to watch several riders take a jump and gap the field. With wet roads and legs in doubt, I thought it was best just to sit back and find some comfortable room going into the round about before the finish. Jeremy was just on my right going into the left hander and looked primed to start his final assault until I heard the less than stellar shift. I attempted to big ring it the finishing climb but the legs went into lock down at the top of the first steep pitch forcing me to down shift and soft pedal to the finish. I still enjoyed the race, but will sit back a little bit more next time now that I know the course.

[taudep]

Scott, that really sucks about mechanicals two days in a row. I'm smelling redemption in Killington.