Minuteman Road Club

Men's 3/4
I'll first say that I really wanted to win this race and believed that if I did not, the team would. We all go into races with high hopes, but my form is spot on and the course is big guy friendly. Both these factors and team backing had me believing that I had a real chance. My plan: sit in and surprise attack with 3 to go. With a good jump, some team blocking, and me turning out 30mph for 3 minutes. We can do that!

The squad had a solid plan laid out by Jacob should this one fail. The team win became more dubious when emails / texts from a few key guys popped up indicating their decision bail. They obviously have better weather apps than we did. I knew we would struggle to organize, but remained positive because we had solid numbers the last lap lead-out train intact.

I also knew there would be crashes. It was slick but slowly drying during the warm-up / course inspection... Then it started to lightly rain while staging. Sprinkle turned into steady by whistle time. Yup, definitely lots more crashes there will be. Steady rain turned into heavy by the second lap. The third lap rain transitioned to an insane downpour which is when they established lap count. 23 to go. Standing water on most of the course and the gutters were overflowing. The streets not draining and puddles widening. Ambulance all over the place. Fun stuff!

The speed of the start amazed me. I played it easy going into the second turn. Sure enough a huge crash of many, many guys ensued which split the field. Unfortunately I was behind it and saw about 15 guys attack the back stretch. Now would have been a good time to take a free lap, but instead, in the pouring rain, I spent the next 10 minutes clawing my way back. The rain pounding the aeroshell yielded a rhythm helping sustain my chase.

Completely gassed I reached the tail of the shattered peloton of maybe 10-12 guys. I sat in and recovered for a lap or two. No need to drink because I'd got my fill from the rooster tails in front of me. JDZ was up towards the front of this group and when gaps started opening up, I jumped up to his wheel. JDZ and I traded pulls pushing the pace of this ragged group consisting mostly of MRC.

Finally the the leaders came into sight. Grabeau and JDZ jumped off my wheel after a particularly long pull and rolled up the road. Having worked so on the initial chase, then continued chasing, I had nothing left. MRC traded pulls for a lap or two, but (I think) we all got completely discouraged when the lap count dropped by 10 and saw 5 to go. We were racing for 10th at best.

MRC continue trading pulls for the remaining laps and rolled through the finish in a bunch getting 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th, and 16th. Everyone behind us got pulled, crashed out, or gave up in the dismal conditions.

Funny thing is as soon as we stopped racing, so did the rain. I took a few more laps, changed up, then went straight to the hospitality tent and drank my fill, rang the cow bells, and cheered on our boys in the P1/2/3 field.

Good racing all around. Sharon bagged another win, the 3/4 squad lived to fight another fight, and the P1/2/3 race was very exciting to watch. I'm hoping that more folks post up because racing in Salem was pretty exciting last night!

I arrived in Salem while the 3/4 race was going on and the rain was absolutely ridiculous, kudos to everyone who finished.

Lined up w/ Joe, Tom, Oscar, and Josh for the P/1/2/3 race. Of the past 7 editions of this race, only once has there been a successful breakaway, but I still had hope that I would make it into a winning break. I stayed near the front most of the race and followed the moves by the favorites I marked. On a prime lap early in the race, I was on Tom’s wheel and asked him to drill it on the backstretch, which he did amazingly. We were together off the front, with Tom doing almost all the work but we couldn’t nab the back-to-back primes from Peter Goguen and we were eventually chased down by the field.

The course was wet from the downpour and one corner with lots of paint was particularly slippery causing several crashes. The key for maintaining traction was to not pedal or brake in that corner. A handful of guys went down right in front of me, sparks flew from skidding/grinding bikes and I had to bunny hop/ride over someone’s bike. It was a very close call.

Nearing the end of the race I knew it would come down to a “field sprint”, so I conserved energy. 1 lap to go I moved up to the top 5ish wheels and was feeling very good. The pace was not nearly as fast I was expecting. I was on Rosenholtz’s wheel w/ 2 corners to go and decided not to pass him, even though I definitely had the legs. I lost some positions going into the last corner and was on Myerson’s wheel in the sprint. I had more momentum and speed than him, and started to pass him on the outside. He heard me coming and aggressively closed down any space to pass, forcing me within inches of the curb while my bars were up to his hip. I braked hard to avoid crashing and it was over at that point, I finished 7th.

I was very upset about how the last half lap went for me, as I knew I had the legs and positioning for a much better result. 7th is one spot away from upgrade points.
Tip/Lesson learned: don’t get on Adam Myerson’s wheel in a sprint, and if you are (and you have the legs), always try to pass where the door cannot be shut, because he doesn’t give a crap about “holding lines”.