3 April 2016 Plainville Crit

[pcollins]

I wasn't planning on racing this weekend due to the snow storm, but I saw on Twitter that the Plainville Crit was proceeding with racing, as the area wasn’t expecting much snow. I decided to do a day of registration for the 1/2/3 race. I lined up with ~25 other guys in the cold, wind, and intermittent snow squalls for 50 laps of racing. The road conditions were nearly 100% dry.

10 laps in there were 2 guys (Zanotti from Errace and Markewich) off the front, out of sight, and the race organizer said “They’re going for it! Now or never!” So Sallee (the defending champ), Fortini (BikeReg.com) and I bridged up. The five of us lapped the field in 10 laps. Sallee and I were the strongest in the field and I talked to him about the two of us going off the front again and he thought it was a good idea.

During the last 30 laps, I made several hard attacks and Sallee made one attack, but all were covered by Errace. With one Errace rider off the front and with strong winds, not many were willing to pull, so there was a ton of lollygagging in between attacks. I spoke with Sallee about the original break picking up the pace so the Errace guy wouldn't lap the field but he said “No way, we don’t have to worry about that.” Well, because of our (sometimes ridiculously) slow pace, the Errace guy lapped the field, making 6 riders 1 lap up. Once I heard he caught the field, I immediately attacked to try and get separation again before the guy could recover, but again, Errace shut it down.

On the last lap we were almost at a track stand, waiting for someone to make a move. I was on the front and decided to make my move with ~700m to go. I got a small gap and held it to the line, taking the win! Sallee and Fortini rounded out the podium.
Throughout the race, I felt really good and knew that I had a good shot at the podium, but I wasn’t expecting to win. Although I didn’t break even with the prize money, at least I collected my first Cat 1 upgrade points!

[Jacob]

That's great Patrick!

[pace21]

Cat 1 upgrade points. Good lord. Well done Patrick.

[carlshimer]

Sweet... and nice that you might have caught some of the competition at home in their snuggies

[cbusick]

Nice!

[scott_sweeney]

Cat 1 upgrade points. Good lord. Well done Patrick.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[Mkidd3]

NICE WORK!!!

[rusto]

Well done, Patrick!

[ahamilton]

Really awesome. Hard enough to win, but to do it from the front by basically riding them off your wheel is doing it the hard way. Impressive.

[Smudger]

"make my move with ~700m to go. I got a small gap and held it to the line,"

That just does not happen!!! Well done Patrick very impressive

[pcollins]

Thanks guys!

Smudger, yeah the move was pretty risky but here's why I made that choice:
1. I knew the guy on my wheel wasn't the strongest in the bunch and he was the one who would have to immediately react to my attack.
2. Sallee, a very good sprinter (I saw on Strava he put out 1,500w max in that race), decided to take up the rear (a tactical mistake IMO), so I already had 4 bike lengths of separation on him, so I thought I'd capitalize on that sooner rather than later.
3. I've learned, especially from CX, that one of my strengths is repeated hard accelerations and holding them for ~20-30 seconds, I played that card at the end and throughout the race.
4. The lapped riders were pulled with 3 to go and with only 6 of us, track standing ensued and it's easier to get a gap at slow speeds.

Make no mistake, the effort hurt like hell and they usually don't work, but it paid off this time

[PJ McQuade]

Great effort - well earned!