Minuteman Road Club

Report from Cat 3 race.

We were well-represented at the start, Busick, Tyler, Winslow, AJ, and me. The story of the day was the wind. I've raced in just about every condition but never in wind this fierce. It definitely impacted the way the race played out. On the front side of the course no one wanted to get away because of a strong tailwind. On the backside, a brutal headwind/crosswind made it torture to be on the front or attack off of it. An early crash on Whitins Rd took out Tyler and Busick. I saw it happen in front of me but had just enough time to pick my way through. Someone rode off the shoulder into the dirt, panicked, came back in and took Tyler and others out. It wouldn't surprise me if the wind was a factor. Total bummer about losing two of our guys in a early crash, but glad they are OK.

I'll sum the rest of the race up by saying that the major damage was done on Lackey each lap. A few aggressive college guys and juniors were attacking Lackey from the bottom on nearly every lap, making for a very long and painful 2-2.5 minutes. The false flat at the top into the finish stretch - always hard - was worse this year with the strong wind in your face. Lackey always does damage but it caused more this year it seemed. On the second time up, a sizable gap opened toward the top and Winslow layed down some serious horsepower to pull myself and a small pack back to the main group. Thanks Winslow! I don't think everyone made it back though.

There were strange moments where the race would slow way down, then suddenly surge back up; random attacks happened then got pulled in, your classic over-enthused Cat 3 stuff. One break formed on Whitins on Lap 4 before the 4-way intersection in town. Someone unleashed a furious attack into the wind. A few guys joined, one by one, including a Yale rider (he might have even initiated?) I was a few rows back but didn't have the legs or the courage to make the jump. It already felt like survival mode at this point. Winslow went to the front and made a valiant bridge attempt but the pack wasn't having it and he got reeled back in. The wind couldn't have helped either. This was probably one match too many for Winslow and he got detached shortly after on Lackey. The break was pulled in on Manchaug Rd, but I think the Yale rider got away alone. Not sure, but he solo'd to victory.

Our pack of 50 or so was down to under 15 by the final lap. No one seemed to be chasing the Yale rider and things were pretty tame until the last 2k. Someone unleashed a hard attack up the left side just before we crested the top of Manchaug Road. Seems like a dumb place to attack, right into a descent, but I guess he wanted to get away before Lackey. He was brought back at the bottom of Lackey but this made the approach to the climb all that much harder. I didn't enter Lackey in great position but hit the bottom hard and passed a few riders who were gassed. When I topped the lower steep section I could already see the podium getting away so I was hoping to limit my losses, pass a few more guys, and snag a top 10. I was drained at the top, but luckily the guys around me were in worse shape so I was able to edge them out for 11th, just missing top 10, but I have a long history with 11th place so it's fitting.

Wow, glad to see you weren't a DNF too. Great job fighting to stay with it. Sounded like a very tough race.

To the other guys, I know it is painful, but I would like to hear what happened from the other guys who DNFd.

I was a DNS. I was sick as a dog on Friday afternoon and evening. Faint, weak, couldn't eat. Went to sleep at 8 PM. Felt better but weak all day Saturday. I knew it was a good decision to no go for Sunday so I didn't even show up. It is a bummer since this was my attempt at the 4 weekends of glory (Battenkill, Killington Stage Race, Ken Harrod and then Purgatory) but it wasn't to be.

Result issue fixed. How's this for consistency: 11th place at Purg 2014, '15 & '16. Trouble is, that doesn't hack it. I know,I know practice my 2 min. power, anything else, coaches?

40+ 1-4 for the 1st race of the day at 8AM. Early morning it was still humid, almost feeling like it would get too warm, damp roads and wind just beginning to pick up. Lined up with Jason and Oscar, minus John as noted above. Right away on Central Tpk one guy goes away (I missed the team). I thought solo but was proven to be wrong (it was actually Jeb Fowler from 545 who initiated it and Hildenbrand from Aetna responded, I didn't see Fowler already ahead). No reaction from the field and Jason's not saying anything so we continue on. On Whitins a Horst guy is trying to initiate a chase and I go with him but we also have an Aetna guy not doing anything. That's when Horst tells me it's Aetna and 545 ahead so with 4 more 545 guys and 5 Aetna back in the field (and only 32 total starters) it becomes apparent that's a dangerous break. I tried to see if Horst guy could get a couple others from his team, as they also had 5 guys, to get more organization but after a couple half-hearted attempts on Manchaug everyone settled in for Lackey #1. Lap 2 and CCB sends some flyers off on Mendon that I go with to give Jason a pull. He responds with a huge dig on Barnett hill to temporarily break up the field and I have to put in a hard effort just to catch back on for Whitins. And then the wind starts! Jason and I had talked about hitting Lackey hard on lap 2 so that's what I did at the bottom, leading the main pack into the 2nd ramp. Hit the rollover and went back to the front with Jason then coming back around to charge things into the feedzone turn. But nobody else following thru and pace slowed way down on Central starting lap 3. The surging/slowing (with the surges, at least for me, being HARD) continued and I had to go into hang on mode. On Manchaug on lap 4 I started getting some cramping but luckily Lackey #4 wasn't overly hard. Pace ramped up on Central and had to dig again to maintain and had a feeling that might come back to bite me. As we hit the 4 corner on Whitins on final lap the gap has really come down and Fowler is in sight. Catch him and on the final rise before the descent I come detached and have to really dig deep to catch on before Lackey. Hit bottom of Lackey and I'm empty. Tempo to the finish was all I could muster for 19th. Hildebrand stayed away by 10 sec (had been almost 2 min) and Jason grabbed 3rd but 1st for the MA championships. As a kind of consolation I was called up for 3rd in the 45-49 (guess they do 5 year brackets for the state, who knew?). Jason afterwards expressed surprise that the field let Hildebrand go, and in hindsight I could have done the bridge to him attempt for a 3-person break. Who knows how it would have played out, but would have been fun to try..

djming wrote: but would have been fun to try..

I'm not sure that would have been fun

jraguin wrote:I would like to hear what happened from the other guys who DNFd.

I was a DNS also but listed as a DNF. I wasn't planning on doing this race so listed on the waitlist. I was able to get in but my 5 year old dog got very sick and we had to put him to sleep. I figured if I could channel my feelings as anger I'd race. Unfortunately that wasn't the way I was feeling on Sun. I drove out to the race with the wife and did a lap of the course in the car but in the end my head wasn't in it so didn't want to chance something going wrong so bailed on the race.

I did get the KOM at the bar that day though!

Anyway getting back to our new normal and going to start training for bluehills.

Came into the race not completely recovered from a virus I picked up after last weekend.

The first time up Lackey was insanely hard, the field shattered and I was dangling solo off the back on the main group and couldn't close down the agonizingly small gap, so I waited for the second main group behind me and we worked together to catch back on to the front of the race at the bottom of the descent.

The second time up Lackey was just as hard, gaps opened everywhere in the headwind at the top, all the heavy hitters got away in a group of 12ish and they were gone for good. I made the first chase group of about 10ish guys. The field of 50 was broken up into many smaller groups.
I worked hard with the group to try and close the gap down to the breakaway, we got it down to 45 seconds at one point. A handful of guys from the break couldn't handle the pace and when we passed them, they were so blown that they couldn't hang with us, most of them DNF'ed. The gap to the break grew to 2.5 mins, so we were racing for 10th place.

Second to last time up Lackey my chain broke right at the bottom. No Sram car, so my day was over. I had a leisurely walk up Lackey to the finish line. So, I rode 6 of the 7 laps. If I finished the race in the group I was with, finishing 10th to 18th-ish, I would have won the U23 MA state champs. Bummer. First road racing DNF.

Now it's time for some crits.

First thing that happened was Busick, Chris Gougen and I got in a breakaway in the neutral section...that was interesting. Then after the neutral I got to the front, and drilled it pretty hard, hoping to string the group out so it was not a huge cluster going into the descent. This was met with yelp from Alex Grabau ("Dude! I am doing like 400watts and barely holding your wheel!") Then a truck pulling a trailer got in front of the neutral car and caused us basically to go neutral for the next 2 miles. Then......As PJ mentioned, I got crashed out, unfortunately taking Busick down with me (along with 4-5 others). What happened: the shoulder disappeared on Whitins and, the guy in front me, who was riding in the shoulder, decided to try to make room, were there was not any. He caught the 3in lip of the edge of the pavement and tried to jump back in the group. His back wheel caught mind as he flailed around causing me to hit the lip, and go down, taking a others with me. A bunch of nonsense, could have easily ridden in the gravel, which is what I tried to do before he swerved all over the place. Basically just re-ripped open everything I banged up from Killington (minus the head). Bike is fine other than the front flat. Busick and I rode back to the finish. I decided to try another lap just to keep moving. I called it after doing a second lap (shock/rush of crash wore off and headwind was getting annoying). Chris and I did get a good laugh when we were riding up Lackey to the finish. We caught some other guy who asked us if we were still racing, we said NO. He responded "yeah, I cut my finger" and shows us some tiny little cut....meanwhile we are both riding with ripped up jerseys, visible bangs and bruises, and I have blood literally dripping down my arm...all in all, bad luck again (for both me and Chris). Luckily injuries mostly just missing skin, can keep training!

This was my first CAT3 race, and I really did not know what to expect. Tyler started out super hard, and everyone was in a world of unexpected hurt right out of neutral. unfortunately that was the last I saw of Tyler, unaware that there was even a crash. As in every other race, people were hesitant to do work on the front, one or two guys were really crushing it but then started getting mad no one else would pull through. This is when I started to take some big efforts on the front to at least make our squad look good even if I blew up in the process. I came into Lacky the 1st time right on the edge of redline, not a good start.

I managed to regroup the next lap, and as PJ mentioned pull back a big gap that had opened at the top of the climb lap #2.

Lap # 3 was a series of speed up/slow down surges, that were more uncomfortable the I had expected. Following the 3rd time up lacky I could feel myself becoming dehydrated/cramping, I did manage to grab a bottle from neutral feed zone, although it was too late. My final match burned was the bridge attempt PJ mentioned, where my Calf/quads started to seize. After this I dangled 5 feet off the back for about 8 minutes until I finally popped.. Rolling up lacky #4 solo it was all to convenient to end my ride at the start finish vs doing a solo lap of pain..