Minuteman Road Club

I'm keeping this report (relatively) Cratty friendly, or short and sweet.

Staged with Chris Pare in the Cat 3s with 50 or so riders. For those unfamiliar, Hilltowns is one giant 55 mile loop with a grueling 4 mile climb at mile 20 (E. Hawley Road), a lot of descending, some rollers and then a long sustained climb to the finish.

Nothing to note in the opening miles preceding East Hawley Road. Fast and mostly downhill. Some ill-placed cones on the yellow line created some anxiety and a bad crash for one guy early on. I knew the pace would be hot as soon as we reached the East Hawley climb but since it's around a 20 min. effort I wanted to avoid blowing up early. This meant letting a group of 10 roll away. I was at/over my limit the entire time so making this selection wasn't feasible. A small second selection was made, which I also missed, but they were in sight at the top of the climb, good news since the back side of the mountain is a long way down. I joined forces with 10 chasers and we latched on 5 miles later with some good organization from the group. I was gassed from the effort when we finally caught the peloton. The bad news was the break of 8-10 had around 2 mins. on us. I was of little use after this, as was most of the field, and the pace was pushed by Peter Sullivan and a handful of other workhorses on the front. We hit the long roller up route 9 and the pace lifted, shelling a few guys off the back. This is where I popped last year, but I managed to stay with our group of around 20 riders. I put in a late push toward the front at the false flat 1 K to go section to get in position for the sprint, but this final effort proved to be my last match. I rolled in at the back of the bunch sprint. We never caught the break, so I estimate I was somewhere around 20th maybe. Eh, better result than last year at least.

Jacob, Ken, Chris B, and Rob were on the pre-reg list in other fields, so I'll be curious to read their tales of East Hawley Hell. If you haven't tackled this climb and you've done Battenkill, picture Stage Road x 3 and you'll get the picture...

I was hoping for more play by play of East Hauley Road...

Nice job hanging in there, that race may be even harder than Killington. Hence my lack of participation.

JeremyC wrote:I was hoping for more play by play of East Hauley Road....

I didn't want to fully relive the nightmare.

Cat 5 Race.
I'd never been up E Hawley before. I assumed, this being a 5 race that some fools would attack too hard at the beginning and then blow up. I was surprised at how quickly the race exploded on the first slopes. I rode a pace I knew I could sustain on the first hard climbs. I thought I'd fixed the shifting issues with my derailleur from the crash at Quabbin, but apparently I haven't had to use my 25 or 27 in a while, since every time I shifted up into it it would click click click and randomly slip. I lost some ground until I figured out if I held the shift lever I could keep it from skipping. At that point there were 3 riders way up with the pace car and a larger group of 8 containing a couple of guys I knew from the Purgatory race (including the ^$@%@@ that beat me) and Dave from Bike Alley, who I knew to be a slightly better climber than I from the Wednesday Night ride I do. I dug deeper and managed to catch on to the tail of the group. Just then Dave picked it up a bit. Nobody in the group could respond, so I moved to the front. A few latched onto my wheel. Several were dropped. The hill leveled off a bit and I shifted to the 23 which stopped the skipping and I reeled in Dave, but when it kicked up again he went harder than I could sustain. This continued to the top, him gapping me on the steps, me reeling him back in on the false flats. Everyone else from the original group of 8 was long gone, but a kid on a Cannondale caught up to me. We caught Dave for good and then picked up a guy named Zack. At mile 24 C-Dale Jr said "Anyone know when this %$#$%#$@ing hill ends?"

We got over the hill, with the wheel car trailing us. One other rider managed to catch us, but after a couple rotations he was gone for good. We rotated well, Dave and I doing good steady pulls, C-Dale Jr doing short, hard pulls, and Zack just pulling through and rolling off.

With only 2 of us working hard, we were losing ground to the 3 riders ahead of us. Eventually the wheel car gave up on us, and we settled in to a predictable routine. I was thinking how Jeremy said he'd "Accept nothing short of victory" from me, but didn't see what I could do. Nothing much else happened until the final hill on route 9. I did the last pull into it and Dave attacked. I charged after him, but my legs were useless, and Zack wouldn't help. I sat back down and started a hard tempo after dave, hoping I could gain on the false flat after the 1K sign. About 1/2 way up Zack attacked me too. I could only continue at the tempo I was at, but after the 1k sign I started realing him in. I heard C-Dale JR trying to catch me, but then he blew up and was no longer a threat. I turned in to the reservation and I tried a last kick at the 200m sign, and was gaining on Zack, but not fast enough to get him.

We ran into the guys that finished 2nd and 3rd who said the guy who won was off by himself for most of the race. Dave got 4th, Zack 5th, and me 6th.

I vow never to do another road race with a climb longer than 10 minutes. It's all crits and punchy road races for me.

I had a physiological about 1/2 way up east hawley, lost around a minute or 2 to pj's group, worked with 3 others for what seemed like forever not seeing anyone up the road, then before the feed zone we saw that we were less than a minute back, we ramped up the pace, picked up a few stragglers so we had 5 or 6, then I touched a wheel while in the red, saved it but ended up in some loose sand and had to unclip. I lost about 75 meters to my group and never regained contact. The last 15 miles were interminable. No water and minimal muscular function. Unless you count cramps. Then I got home and threw up.

Chris, that race report has to go down as one for the ages. Anything that ends with puking is truly epic.

I really like these adventure-through-the-countryside races with the big climbs. One of my main long-term goals as a cyclist is to be really good at them. Today showed that I’m making progress, but I’m not quite there yet.

The approach to East Hawley Road was without incident. I made it past the really bad roads, the greasy descent, the narrow bridge, and that place where I flatted last year. I couldn’t wait for the climb to get started. I was hyper-alert. I was really important to have a chance to test myself there, regardless of the result.

Onto the climb. Rob was in a great position at the start; I was about 1/3 back. I settled in and moved up, trying to stay cool and go at a reasonable pace. I was climbing with the race! This was already my best Hilltowns ever. About halfway up my pulse was at 170 at the false flat – I was at the threshold but holding on. As the road kicked up again I started to struggle. I checked my pulse again – 185. Danger. 2/3 of the way up I started to very slowly lose contact. I checked my pace down to something that I could maintain, which turned out to be 8 MPH. At this point in the race, you can see someone about 30-40 yards up the road from you and safely predict that they’ll be 5 minutes ahead of you at the finish.

At the top I picked up a guy who was dropping back and coaxed him onto my wheel. There were 15-20 guys ahead of us at that point, the closest of which was no more than a few hundred yards ahead. We worked to catch on, but it became clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t happening. There was a large group behind, so we sat up and waited.

At this point my plan was to harness the awesome power of the peleton to bring back the leaders and pave the way to victory. In reality I knew that the race was gone, but I still managed to convince myself to race for the win. Getting a proper paceline going was a project. Lots of encouragement and constructive criticism… eventually we had about 20 guys helping, though most of the time it was more like 5-10. I was probably doing as many pulls as anyone. We went on like that for most of the rest of the way. All that we achieved for it was to catch two guys and pass one guy with a flat. I suppose we probably prevented others from catching up. I guess I could have gotten a better result if I’d raced more conservatively, but mile 26 is just way too early to start gunning for 20th place.

At the start of the final climb at mile 52, the engine blew up and the wheels fell off. I saw Rob motor on past me with the bulk of the group and I pedaled my square wheels to the top, losing about 5 minutes in the last 5 miles.

This was certainly my best performance here yet, and Rob bought me lunch! Thanks Rob!

pace21 wrote:I had a physiological ...

I love this term

Nice work to all of you (physiological or not). This race sounds like a nightmare.

What a race, this was a tough one. It really is all about that 4 mile long climb right in the middle. I had two simple goals for this race:
1.Don’t get caught in any of the big cracks in the road.
2.Pace myself on the early slopes of the 4mile monster.

Goal #1 was met. Unfortunately I failed goal #2. The beauty of having a powermeter, it can help to identify the moment, and maybe why, you implode. I got too caught up in trying to ride near the front during the climb. 5 minutes in and I’m close to my 5 minute power PR. At one point I felt my ears pop (pressure change?) we were climbing so quickly.

You racers can imagine what the next 15 minutes were like foe me after this initial effort. I also had a physiological moment or 4 during this time. Instead I should have just ridden the climb at my own pace and probably would have made it up quicker. As a comparison, Wells Ave felt easy today.

The rest is as Jacob and Chris describe, a long long long drag back up to the finish with another 1000ft of elevation gain.

Jacob, an encouraging data point. Looking at the Strava times and race results you can see our leaders, which we hung with for a while on the big climb, went over the top just 15 seconds slower than PJ the climbing machine. I think the cat 4 field was full of those super climber juniors.

Kudos to everyone who made it out there yesterday and to Jacob for working his butt off in our chase group.

Congrats on the race results guys. No matter the finish the position you guys made some very good efforts out on the road. Heard from a few of our guys too, seems like there was great racing in all categories. I love hearing the tales of suffering; the Hilltowns course will do it to you! See y'all soon I'm sure. -Jerry

I vow never to do another road race with a climb longer than 10 minutes. It's all crits and punchy road races for me.

This is a gateway drug to only racing cyclocross.

Seems like anyone who makes it to the finish line in this race deserves a medal. Nice work by all who had the guts to toe the line.

I'm curious to see what the list of MRC'rs who vow to never do Hilltowns again looks like.....

scott_sweeney wrote:I'm curious to see what the list of MRC'rs who vow to never do Hilltowns again looks like.....

One.

michaelcole wrote:

scott_sweeney wrote:I'm curious to see what the list of MRC'rs who vow to never do Hilltowns again looks like.....

One.

Two

JeremyC wrote:

michaelcole wrote:

scott_sweeney wrote:I'm curious to see what the list of MRC'rs who vow to never do Hilltowns again looks like.....

One.

Two

I'm three if you remove the word "again."

I just re-read this one, classic....

pace21 wrote:I had a physiological about 1/2 way up east hawley, lost around a minute or 2 to pj's group, worked with 3 others for what seemed like forever not seeing anyone up the road, then before the feed zone we saw that we were less than a minute back, we ramped up the pace, picked up a few stragglers so we had 5 or 6, then I touched a wheel while in the red, saved it but ended up in some loose sand and had to unclip. I lost about 75 meters to my group and never regained contact. The last 15 miles were interminable. No water and minimal muscular function. Unless you count cramps. Then I got home and threw up.

Four...but I would surely put a piece of tape over the garmin:)