Minuteman Road Club

Decided to make the trek up to Haverhill, although I really don't need any shoes.
Alice and I were close by the day before for a family gathering so decided to stay over Saturday night.
Nice early morning with Alice cruising thru Byfield, Georgetown, Rowley and revisiting some old routes I used to run on back in high school and college years. Good times and even bumped into an old high school friend literally at the high school (Triton Regional) where I went and where we parked today for our ride.

Back to the hotel (thank you Hampton Inn for the 12:30 late checkout) to rest a bit, get some food and place the first pin holes into the re-print SS. Alice and I slow rolled the 2 miles to the course instead of fighting the downtown congestion to find a place to park. Set up in a nice shady spot and started up a conversation with Angelo. Turns out he's originally from Montreal but moved to Haverhill in the late 70's and opened up an Italian restaurant. But, he remembered this race from when it was held in the 70's and 80's and continued to talk Alice's ear off about biking in general (gee, there's something new to her!) while I politely excused myself to go warm up. Found The Pirate who was up to watch and who turned a whole crowd outside the Lasting Room pub into my personal cheering section. Thanks everyone!

Small field (25) and decided I was going to be active and try for a break. Two guys got away during what was supposed to be a neutral first lap. A number of bridge attempts that failed and some hard chasing that whittled the gap down but they were still out there so I decided to go on my bridge attempt. Inching away at gaining when Bill Yabroudy jumps by me and a quick look back and we have a gap. Go to work with him and we just about make the catch but the main field apparently woke up and chased us down. Back to normal. I was actually feeling good, marking selective moves. While I spent time towards the back on a few occasions, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to pick my spots to move up pretty much when I needed to. Maybe 30 minutes in a promising group begins to form with a Downeast guy (4 guys in the field), Yabroudy, Jim Nash, Doug Chrystall and I when a loud "bang" goes off and Downeast guy is skidding across the road (yup, rear tire blew). Of course he was leading at the time so we're all in avoidance mode and so much for that. A few more attempts to create later race breaks but the main field was having nothing to do with that.

5 to go I decide I'm going to make an early move, just a matter of when and I need to move up first. Keep moving up. Approach 2 to go and on the straightaway finish stretch I diesel up to a good position to hit the uphill turn 1 into turn 2 solid and move up further. I need one more move on the backstretch to get up into the first 5-6, then coming off the final turn I'm planning to go hard (so with just over a lap to go). No problem, so I put in one good surge when both hammies (and one quad for good measure) seize up. All I can do to keep myself in a straight line and not cause a crash. So much for my plans as I just go into endurance mode to crawl across off the back. Oh well. That's twice this year with those cramps in the heat. Damn it!

Really fun course though. The turns are semi-technical but manageable at speed. One uphill turn (#2) where just after the turn the curb juts out a bit so you can play a bit of chicken to see if you can squeeze up a few spots without getting pinched. Except for turn 3 there really aren't bad lines as all areas of the turns are in play and create possibilities for movement.

If they stick to 45+ next year I’m there

Missed seeing you Chris.

A couple of friends and I had great outdoor seats on the course. We got the whole bar cheering for Dave in the Masters 45+, and later Jason & Chris in the Cat 1/2/3 race. The beer was nice. Jeremy would have been proud of our "effort".

In between was the women's Cat 1/2 race. We didn't know anyone, so we told everyone at the bar to cheer for "Sheila". There was no Sheila in the race. It was pretty funny as they kept yelling "Go Sheila!" as the pack went by.

I did really want to make it but my son worked Saturday, has been jonesing to get up to Highland, and the weather was mint so he twisted my arm (yeah right) and we rode there instead. The good news is I did the first big drop on Bonesaw That I’ve been looking at for years:

https://youtu.be/hXibnu0UOvw

Whoa! That looks like a rush.

That looks terrifying but cool video!

I was really stoked for this race, because it was going through a downtown area, which is rad! Also it was hot, so I focused on hydration. I had osmo in the bottle, plenty of water ahead of time, and a red bull. So by warmup time I had achieved what we all strive for every day: championship hydration levels.



Speaking of teammates, the only one in my group was Derin, who hipped me to a secret plan some age dopers had to sneak off the front at the beginning of the race and combine like transformers to form the Winning Break.

Cast of characters:
Mark - a locomotive that sprints
Paul - a sprintier version of Mark
Torin - loves to make 300W for 30-40min
Tate - loves to shut down Torin/work with Torin
Me - extremely competent at getting 4th or 9th

The announcer is hooting at everyone not to sit at the start line waiting to stage so I take another warmup lap with Paul and then stage DFL after everyone else who did not respect the announcer. Cannily positioned behind literally everybody I feel confident that I will be aware of crashes happening in front of me.

Off we go, and I guess someone is attacking at the front?? We are moving very fast. The average for this race was 27mph. Sorry cat 5s, I hope this did not permanently form your opinion of criterium racing. I push down on the pedals and am very grateful for the less dangerous corners and lack of rain. If someone was trying to get away, they're failing, because it is hard to roll off the front at 27mph. It turns out that the Winning Break plan, like all bike racing plans ever, immediately became irrelevant once the race started.

The race mostly seems to be animated by Torin, Tate and Mark. Mark seems like he does not really care about conserving any energy for sprinting later. That must be nice. For my part, I'm making a sequel to the original Sitting In. Sitting In II: Sit In Harder. I make up position on the corners and lose it on accelerations intentionally soft-pedaling to be able to put out what is going to need to be a lot of power later given that the finish is a downhill drag race.

Derin zooms by; I zoom by Derin. He attacks with six laps or so to go but does it right in front of Paul on the fast downhill section, and Paul, who weighs about 1.4 Derins, shuts it down. It is super fun to zoom around these corners, you feel like you're in a roller coaster where other roller coasters could disrespect the track and slam into you.

Three laps to go and things start to heat up! I'm expecting Mark or Paul to go from a ways out so I hitch a ride on Torin's wheel to the front of the group. One turn later, as I'm feeling satisfied about how little effort that cost me, the guy in front of Torin pedal strikes on turn 3 and sends himself into some hay bales, narrowly missing a phone pole. Close to a dozen guys plow in behind him, and I don't go down but have to ride over some legs and chainrings before I come to a stop.

Shredded front tire with no free lap so that's the race. The only one of my list of favorites who didn't crash or get stopped by the crash is Mark, who promptly drills it for the last two laps and solos to the win.

I really liked this race and would strongly recommend anyone thinking about it to do it next year!

pace21 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 09, 2018 2:20 pm I did really want to make it but my son worked Saturday, has been jonesing to get up to Highland, and the weather was mint so he twisted my arm (yeah right) and we rode there instead. The good news is I did the first big drop on Bonesaw That I’ve been looking at for years:

https://youtu.be/hXibnu0UOvw

that trail is so dang fun, same with Hellion (that's the jump line right?)

I actually turned onto lower Hellion about halfway down, right after the big wooden rainbow

Hey, what is this an MTB message thread? Crits crits crits I remember one guy once saying... I think his name was Chris.

Haha. Anything that involves technical skill and no climbing is fair game for me these days. Crits and bike parks both qualify