Minuteman Road Club

Cat 3 report. Did more suffering than I've done in a LONG time this past Saturday. In case you forgot, this was in the midst of the record-breaking heat wave. Fast opening 20 miles either flat/descending with some banged-up roads and very fast descents. Lost a bottle on one such road at mile 10 which would cost me later. I almost stopped to go back for it but didn't feel like burning matches on a chase before the main climb. Turns out I probably should of because I got dropped shortly thereafter! East Hawley Road is the mile 20 climb. It's brutal. 20 minutes/~4 miles to the top. Or 18 minutes if you were off the front which I surely wasn't. It must have 10 steps to it, though I wasn't really counting and preferred to stare into the hot pavement as I baked and blew up under the open sun. The climb levels off slightly at times but there' s no where to recover. And if your using those sections to catch back on like me then you're definitely not recovering. Bottom line is East Hawley road is a monster and it makes climbs at Battenkill, Quabbin, and Housatonic seem easy. Only thing I've done that's worse is Devil's Kitchen at Catskills and it's not too far behind that IMHO. Anyway...so I'm in group two a few minutes into the climb, then moved back to group three which became not much of a group at all, just survivers like myself. I regrouped with a Cambridge bike guy and another dude at the top. A CCB guy and Farm team kid joined us and we began chasing in a somewhat organized affair. A group of about 10 caught us on the descent. Our chase was now around 20-deep, except only like 5 of us were actually working. I did a fair number of pulls, drank the last bit of my water, took a big sip from a h20 hand up at the feedzone, dumped the rest on my head (only PRO moment of the day), and got back to work chasing. Miles 25-50 are very fast with little climbing so it was conducive for a chase. We caught on with close to 10 miles from the finish and I was cooked. Finally I started to rest and tried to conserve but the damage was done. At the start of the Rt. 9 climb an attack came, the pace lifted, and I cramped up, cracked, and slipped off the back with a few other dead souls. The climb at the end is and was the nail in the coffin for me. It's a steady 4-5% climb for, I dunno, 3-4 miles, into the wind. After over 2 hrs in the blazing sun and now without water, I was just fine rolling into the finish alone. Had a much better result last year. Looks like I'll have to give it another try in '12. If you're considering this either find a steep 20 minute climb to train on or hope to god you can descend like Cadel.

I also headed out with PJ to Hilltowns. We both were hopeful the cloudy/overcast conditions during the drive might hold for the start of the race but the front line seemed to be right over the course start when we got there with blazing sun out already. I had a similar race to PJ. Was in the front 10 wheels for most of the 20 miles to the climb. Once we hit the climb I felt like I was on empty. The heat was amazing. Several large packs rode away and I settled in for survival. Hit the top and felt fine once off the climb. About 10 of us organized and the chase was on. Cat 4's do not know how to ride a paceline. A Danbury Auto guy and myself did 60% of the work since everyone else would get on the front and stay there too long causing the pack to swell around them. Anyway it took until the feedzone at mile 35 to catch the main group ahead of us. And then we basically stopped riding. The next group of 8-10 was right up the road and no one organized and we lost sight of them pretty quickly. We had an easy group ride for the downhill to the base of the Route 9 climb. Our group was about 20 guys. Talked to Richard from Stage 5 - nice guy. And big - he casts a nice draft. We hit the climb and since we had been riding like it was a Spring endurance ride I figured we were still way back from the leaders. A couple guys attacked and our main group just slowly dwindled in numbers going up the hill. I just rode it in figuring that there was at least 20 guys ahead. Actually the head of our group came in at the back of the top 10 so should have put more effort in but was glad to finish feeling strong. Actually outsprinted a lot of our group. 16th @ 5+ minutes back. Take away the first 10 minutes on E. Hawley and it would have been a good day.

You guys are suckers for punishment. I vowed after last year to never do that race again (until I'm down to 150lbs). The climb is crazy, East Mountain road rivals Hawley because it's at the end of the race, otherwise Hawley stands alone.

One of my favorite MRC lines of all time (from Jeremy, after he and I did it last year) from Hilltowns - I had asked him how it compared to Quabbin: "Quabbin is a crit compared to Hilltowns".

Good reports guys! See you tomorrow.