Battenkill

[onegeardoug]

I started in the 3's with PJ, Rich, John R, Jeremy and Rob D. It was cold, crappy and wet. With added dirt hills (Herrington) none of us was really thinking this would be easy. We rolled out at 9:46 with a pack of 150. Nothing much to report until we crossed the bridge. The first dirt section was a bit soupy, with big potholes. Bottles were flying everywhere, and the peleton was skittish. We hit Perry Hill, and I pack slid almost all the way to the back. I wasn't feeling good at this point. We hit Juniper Swamp, and it was a complete mess. It was wet, soupy, soft and steep. So, the first 50 or so riders made it though, but then the unclipping began. I was still at the back, which was not good. I had to unclip and run up about half the hill, because the entire hill was blocked by guys off their bikes. Over the top, I could see the follow cars as I joined a chase group of about 10. We swelled to about 20+ chasers, including Rich Batten. Unfortunately, only about 6 or 8 of us were working, and the non-workers were mucking up the paceline. We chased for 20+ minutes, and finally made contact. I was spent. I had about 5 miles before Joe Bean to recover, which proved to be insufficient for any meaningful recovery.

I got shelled on Joe Bean, and was all alone over the top. I could see the Wheels van, and even passed it at one point...but never saw the back of the peleton again. I was chasing down riders left and right, some of which were in my race. Not many of them were interested in going hard anymore, so I just kept going by and riding on my own. I basically did 40 miles solo time trial, which was surprisingly enjoyable. I passed about 50 riders from various fields, probably 15 from my field. I drilled it all the way to the finish line, including a mini-sprint across the line with no one in sight in front or behind me, for 76th. The hardest mid-pack finish I've ever had, for sure. Definitely wasn't the day I had in mind, but I made the most of it.

[jraguin]

(First race of the season so a long race report.) My day was in some ways similar to Doug’s. My big undoing overall was my typical failure to ride near the front. In this race with the mud, it was far more critical to be at the front than in any other year. When you read everyone’s race reports, you will understand why.

I was closer to the front than Doug on Juniper Swamp, and was able to avoid most the carnage of riders stopping so I was able to ride to the top without unclipping. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but with how many riders getting stuck and unclipping / running in cleats, it was challenging. And this is a Cat 3 field of supposedly good riders so I can’t imagine in the other fields. So I caught back on pretty rapidly then rode OK to Joe Bean. I did OK up Joe Bean, trying to gauge my effort and pack slid on purpose, but almost too much as I was really at the back end of the field over the top. I caught a good wheel coming down and didn’t have to do too much work to get back on the main field.

Now to where trouble occurred: we hit a dirt section called Ferguson Road which I had to look up on the map after the race as I had never even noticed it before in the prior 3 times I did the race. On a dry day, you wouldn’t even notice this flat/rolling dirt section about 30 miles into the race. But during 2014 Battenkill? A meaningful section since it was MUD GALORE. Worst road conditions of the whole race. Guys were going all over the place, getting stuck, etc. When you have 100+ guys going through that section and you are at the back, it is trouble. I actually never unclipped, but went basically off the “road”, if you can call it that, twice. I went off not because I was stuck, but because I was avoiding riders who had slowed to 2 mph or came unclipped. But that slowed me down tremendously, and given that I was at the back of the field anyway, that meant trouble. The field was gone and I regrouped with a couple of guys and we started rotating off once we got to smoother dirt and then pavement to catch back on. After a huge effort of the 3-4 of us, we catch back on about 3 miles later. I breathe a sigh of relief and say “OK, time to recover” as I am pretty well shattered. About 1 minute later, we take a left hand turn up Carney Cassidy which is a dirt section and uphill. Uh, oh, ugh. Basically, myself and the other 3-4 who just caught on are at the back all trying to hold on along with a bunch of other guys including Rich B. We just about make it to the top of the first climb when I come off as do some other guys (as usual, Rich somehow stays on).

I ride solo for a bit and then notice Jeremy up a bit in front. I catch up to Jeremy. We ride easy for about 5 minutes wallowing a bit in our misery of getting dropped. Then we start riding a bit faster as we notice other shattered riders up in front and that gives us some motivation. The rest of the way we rode together, never super hard, but putting a solid steady effort. We pick up dropped riders everyone once in a while and then drop some others along the way. I somehow don’t get enough fuel in my and am feeling a bit weak as we hit Meetinghouse. I slowed down a bit but no one in our group is going that hard. We pick it up over the top of Meetinghouse and do some paceline work to pass a bunch more riders. We hit Stage road and go up at a decent but again steady clip. Jeremy and I drop everyone but 1 guy who goes in front of us. Once we get close to the top of Stage we notice some other riders in front. We drill it over the top and the two of us paceline all the way to the finish. About 2K out Jeremy is yelling to put on the gas to catch one final group of 3 but I just have nothing left. Jeremy takes one final dig to catch the 3 and comes up just short. I end up 58th, Jeremy 57th.

Although I can’t be happy with the result, I am happy with the effort in the race. I have to force myself to be at the front in these races that is for sure.

One more point: for those of you who are Strava hounds and comparing segments, comparing to past years, etc. You cannot compare. Those roads were so slow with the muddy conditions. For example, I bet in prior years I went down Ferguson Road at 20+ mph only putting 210 watts with drafting to do it. This year I would guess I was going much slower, very little drafting, and pouring out 250+ watts at least. No dirt road would be comparable, and because we were gassed from the dirt roads, our paved road times will also be slower.

[argus]

I had a whole lot of fun racing Battenkill. Conditions were perfect. Very muddy, sloppy, windy and cold. Was with the front group until someone fell in front of me going up Juniper and dismounted instead of running him over. Put in a lot of effort and somehow managed to catch part of the lead group about ten miles later, which included Kimball and Kevin, and enjoyed riding with them for a while. Throughout the race my bike handling skills seemed to improve exponentially with every section of mud, which means there were a whole lot of increments of improvement. Temperatures dropped as the race went on and the last 15 miles my fingers were too cold to shift, and resorted to full hand paddle shifting. I was able to maintain a solid effort climbing, descending and everything else throughout race. Finished strong, but was completely spent at the finish line. Ended up with a very surprising 19th (surprising in a good way.)

[cbusick]

Cat4A 40+

I lined up with Bill and Ken in the second row. My goal was to stay near the front. I'd pre-road the course from Herrington Hill to the finish on Friday with KevinT, and to be honest was terrified at the thought of bombing down some of those hills in a pack. The roads had obviously been repaired from the washouts of the previous week, but the repairs were so soft the bike just sunk in.
So, anyway, it was obvious I had to stay at the front.

The race started, within 3 miles I'd failed, I was about 50 bikes back. I could see Bill a couple rows up. I moved into gaps, tried moving up one side then the other then the middle, but was only managing to tread water and hold my place. The pace picked up a bit in preparation for the covered bridge. After the bridge things were a little broken up and I moved up through the gaps. I think about 30th at the bottom of Juniper Swamp. Then all hell broke loose. It was rutted out loose mud. Also a weird kind of semi-packed mud with cracks in it that would squirm under your tires and hold you back. The guy to my right unclipped right in front of Bill. I had to weave through people who were unclipping, standing and spinning or just totally screwing up. Near the top I saw that I was in a group of about 10. I thought we were in the front, but then Bill blew by me and then I noticed another group of 10 up the road. We bridged up. People kept talking about a gap, but I wasn't going to look back on those roads. When I did look back several miles later, there was nobody. The field of 100 starters was down to 30.

There were 4 BikeBarn guys in the group. They tried to organize a rotation, but only got about 15 riders to participate. It would go around a couple
times then stall. Then after a lot of yelling it would get going again. I did my turns, but tried to conserve as much as possible. I saw Bill a couple times then he didn't come
up any more. A couple big guys from one of the Quebec teams would drive the pace hard then yell at everyone when things slacked again.

We hit another dirt road that was really soft. I saw a guy wash out and then shoot off the road down into the trees. Lots of smug, self
righteous, bastards yelling at others "Don't do this, don't do that, you must not race cross" A guy in front of me washed out and unclipped so I swerved around him, managed
to stay upright and kept mashing the bike ahead. I think we lost Bill in there somewhere. I didn't see him again after that. When we hit pavement again
we'd clearly lost another 1/3 of the group in the mud.

Just when we started Herrington Hill there was a siren behind us and we were neutralized as a breakaway rider from the 40B group was overtaking us. We
had to make room for him and his pace cars and motorcyles, crappy place to be passed. They said they were slowing us down. Some people took that a little
to seriously and were dropped.

We actually had a pseudo echelon form on one of the open cross wind sections long enough to pop a couple more riders off. Things were thinning out fast.

I'd been sitting in on the lead couple riders on all the serious hills, about 5-10 riders back from the lead. When we hit Meetinghouse one of the BikeBarn
guys (#805) picked up the pace, and things shattered. #806 joined him, and I jumped from one dropped rider to another until I picked up #800 and we bridged
back up. #805 kept the pace high for all of meetinghouse, and by the time we got on pavement again there was nobody behind us. The rotation was 805, 806,
me, 800. 806 surged each time through, and kept driving even after pulling off, making it a total b^@$ch for me to pull through. The whole time he was
yelling, stuff about working together, and sorting things out at the end, this is the winning break, drive drive drive. I really hated him. Finally, when
one of his surges was enough to break 800 off of 805's wheel I slotted in behind 805 to not be near 806 in the rotation anymore. Let him yell and flick
his elbow, rolling through with him was suicidal.

The way things were going I was convinced that if we made it over Stage road together I was going to be popped in the rotation on the final run in and have
to settle for 4th. Then we hit stage road, and 806 picked up the pace, with 800 on his wheel. 805 let a gap open. I waited a little too long for him to
close it before realizing he was blown. I went around 805, and when I noticed he couldn't even match me I picked it up a little more. Just like that, and
I'm on the podium! At the top he was completely gone. That's how it ended. 806 took 800 in the sprint, I rolled in alone, and 805 came in a minute later.

[BTurner]

Stage one. Nice job Chris. I made it over Juniper Swamp with the cool kids and actually did a couple of pulls on the way to Joe Bean until I had to tell the Bike Barn guy to go f**k himself and sat in. I was dislodged toward the top of Joe Bean and was in no mans land and was picked up by a chase group of 10 or so. Once again I sat in until all the officials and wheel vehicles were past us and then actively participated in getting this train wreck home. I was actually feeling pretty good and pulling the group on the dirt and up the hills. I actually dropped the group on Harrington before being picked up on the descent. Then the flat. Fixed, peed then back on the bike. Soloed Meeting House then caught a group that included a buddy of mine from the MTB racing days of past. We had a good chat then hit Stage Road. Alone again at the top I caught a rag tag group that just wanted this to end and coasted in. 28th is not bad but regret not changing tires the night before as there was a better finish in the legs.

Stage two. NETRA Spring challenge. Lined up with about 10 and took the flag. Was up in 6th before my rear brake faded shortly after the second of four laps. Slid to 7th in the remaining two laps. I put a bid in for 6th in the closing mile but kept blowing through turns and decided to just roll it in for a weak 7th.

So I guess 35 points makes me the winner of the Battenkill/Spring Challenge Stage Race unless you know of someone else stupid enough that did this.

Wrecked.

[Jacob]

Thank you all for doing this hard work to bring back stories for my reading

[Jacob]

...pleasure. Congrats to Chris for the podium!

[ahamilton]

Way to go Chris. And sounds like Gary pulled off his Legolas trick of floating on top of the muck.

Sure glad I decided two B-kills was enough and stopped doing it after hearing the descriptions of the conditions this year.

[mfwestbe]

Congrats to Chris!
Cat5C - Since we all know what course conditions were, I'll keep that to a minimum, but add that as the day went on the wind picked up to make life pretty dreadful. I had pretty slim course knowledge going in, and just planned to hang back around 20 riders and shadow the front pace on hills to drop whoever couldn't keep up. That plan went south after the Juniper Swamp fiasco when I had to unclip (I left my pro4's on, which didn't go well with mud and grit churned up by the previous 600 riders through). Too much mud on the cleats to get back on so I had to run it to the top.

Bein' that it's cat5, I figured there were probably a few who made it up ahead of me that I could overtake, so why not go for it? Eventually pulled in a few people to form a line, but it was like pulling teeth to get some of them working or to even come off the front after pulling. We were blowing by some guys caught by themselves in the wind. Eventually wound down to me and three other guys, then two (was a seemingly unaffiliated Boston guy, and a dude from Penn State). We three probably rode more than half the race together. Toward the end 5D caught up to us, and on one of the hills I thought my compatriots were ahead of me, so chased down the group, only to find they weren't there. I stayed with the group (which I realize is slightly uncouth, but didn't care at this point) till dropping off the back on the last hill. Decided to time trial the last 5k for a solid workout. Came in 14 (only 38 finished in my field...).

Knowing I'm not in 'race condition' yet, I'm fine with how I fared. I've noticed where I fall short is on the steeper climbs. Looking forward to Quabbin at the end of the month, though. Hopefully they don't put out slip-and-slides on the roads.

[PJ McQuade]

In all of the Battenkills I’ve done over the years this edition was by far the most grueling, not so much because of the course but because of the conditions everyone else described so well here. The advantage went to strong bike handlers, so those with ‘cross experience had an edge in my opinion, but to some extent it was just plain pack placement – as John said, smooth dirt roads became sluggish power sections that zapped power and divided the pack so position was critical.

First off, domestique of the day goes to Doug Kennedy who gave me a bottle early in the race and then handed me another one shortly after from the feed zone. This was in the first hour and without those bottles my day was toast. My bottles were gone before Juniper, lost in the chaos. The first two dirt section became a bottle graveyard and I added two full ones to rest. RIP. Battenkill is more about attrition than team strategy, but there are plenty of moments like this where the selfless teammate plays a huge role.

Like John, I need to improve my position in the pack this season. I wasn’t in the front at the Juniper mess but was close enough so that my chase was minimal. John and Doug captured the middle part of the race perfectly so I’ll jump to mile 40. Carney-Cassidy blew the field apart. I was at the back but didn’t panic and remained in contact. I think a small group of 4-5 went over the top with a gap, but since I wasn’t up front I’m not sure – but this was “the move” and we never saw these guys again.

We hit the Herrington climb fast and furious and I recall working a lot more than I’d wanted to due to crosswinds; the field, chopped down to maybe 40 guys was single file for a while and it was NOT recovery. This made the climb up Herrington that much harder .The pace was manageable though and I stayed comfortably in the group. We lost maybe ten more on Herrington. Meetinghouse was painfully close to Herrington and recovery was in short supply. I stayed in the mix on Meetinghouse, looked back on the descent and noticed our group was now down to 20 or so. The official informed us the break was around 2 mins up the road but no one in the group seemed to care. There were two CF guys in the break and 2 more in our group who were blocking. I was feeling great on Stage Road and got impatient at the lack of aggression so I moved to the front and strung the group out over the last stretch of the climb. I had a gap over the top with a CF kid on my tail but couldn’t get away. The effort wasn’t fruitless though since we dropped a few more guys on Stage and wore out some of the sprinty-types. The final 4k was very tame. One guy attacked at 2 K and I covered it. I thought about counterattacking here but 2k is a long way to go after this kind of day! At this point I was dead set on not getting buried in the field sprint so I took the corner 2nd wheel and drilled it to the line to take 3rd on the sprint and 13th on the day. I would have loved to see what would have happened if we'd caught the break but a good (brutal) day on the bike nonetheless. Definitely the most “Flanders-y” Battenkill I’ve ever done. No complaints about the management of the race - well-organized and professionally run.

[Len_E]

Rode the Masters 50+ with an expectation that it might be a little less intense than the 45s were a couple years ago when I rode it. So much for expectations. The winner of this race had the best time of any category, by minutes not seconds. He also came back on Sunday and rode the 45+ and got pipped on the line finishing 2nd. Unfair at any age.
The race started innocuous enough, with a Sunday-morning-coffee ride feel to it. Lots of chatter and new season "how ah yahs" until we hit the first incline at around 6 miles. All of a sudden there's a rush to the front and we're still 5 miles from Juniper Swamp. Somewhere in the frenzy, 3 guys take off and are not seen again. The pack calmed down before we headed into the woods and Juniper but then the mud and goo that everyone else spoke of injected panic into the group. I pushed to the front and went over Juniper without a problem and by the time we got back on the road the chase pack had been cut in half with about 25 guys. I stayed toward the front but found that there were about 8 guys working and everyone else was strung out either biding their time or struggling to hold a wheel. I was feeling pretty good and got up Joe Bean at the front. As we descended Bean, my chain fell off. Cursing, I tried to ride it back on but it then jammed forcing me off the bike. By the time I pulled it out and got back on the pack was out of site. I flew down Bean and caught a couple stragglers, only one of which had enough to follow me. We got to that awful dirt section that Chris mentioned and the guy powers ahead of me to take the pull. Great! Not! His front tire washes out with me stupidly on his wheel and I manage to swerve off the road into the woods. I get back on the bike but struggle to get the mud out of my cleats and by the time I get back on pavement my race is done. For the next ten miles I'm alone with my fury, disappointment and depression. I felt good and had a few decent long rides and was as close to being ready for this race as I could muster. And now I'm alone except for the poor bastards who blew up and are now covered in spittle. I pass a few of my race mates who laugh when asked if they could join me. I pushed on but the wind and my frustration were not helpful companions. Finally on Carney-Cassidy I get caught by the Cat 3s and hear a familiar voice as PJ and a charging group sweep me up. I struggle to match their tempo and stay close enough to consider it company for a few miles. Soon Rich Batten comes up behind me and it gives me another shot of adrenaline. I'm feeling ok going over Herrington but the lights begin to go out on Meetinghouse. Rob D and some Cat 3s catch me on Stage Road and we stay together til the end.
Bitter end. However, the weather, road conditions, climbing and disappointment notwithstanding, this is not just a race but an experience. It was great to have it on the calendar and push me and my bike out the door in the snow and rain this winter.

[Fintan]

Great reports. Based on last years conditions would anyone have any suggestions for tire choice, or any other equipment?
Thanks

[pace21]

25mm road tires are perfect IMO. Something with just a little bit of tread like a conti GP4000 (ie not smooth tread). Leave the clincher vs tubular debate up to your wallet.

[ahamilton]

Leave the clincher vs tubular debate up to your wallet.

...but keep in mind that your chances of dealing with the "F" word are much higher at Battenkill than any other RR.

I've done it twice and used 23 mm Michelin Pro Race 3s both times with no issues. But I'd probably go with 25s if I did it again.

[swawersik]

25s are nice. Keep in mind that most years, the paved sections are probably rougher than the dirt ones. Also, at least 60% of the race is paved. So don't sacrifice road performance in exchange for dirt-road functionality (i.e. don't ride a CX bike or 28mm tires)

I don't think I'd run tubulars for this, as the likelihood of flatting and waiting a LONG time for neutral support is significantly higher than your usual race. And tubulars for the road offer only a marginal improvement in return for a huge PITA.

[scottc]

The year I did this race it was bone dry and over 90 degrees and all was well using a standard road clincher setup which was a Michelin Pro 2 clincher in 2008. My approach for 2015 will likely be my go to race wheelset, which is Zipp 303 tubular with Conti Sprinter 22s. If weather plays into me desiring something different, then it would definitely be the Panaracer Gravel King 23 or 26 with an unltralite tube.

Regardless, the Battenkill is a really race of early season fitness, so if you invest in serious trainer miles and go in with great base fitness, then you'll do well despite what tire you roll with.

[Fintan]

Yes, a lot of training to do over winter.