Take me to the river

Fall River that is. I don't know why they call it Fall River. There is a river that flows into the ocean there, but it's the Taunton River, so who knows where the Fall comes from. The Sunday morning radio blues show was playing all songs with river themes on my drive down, so I'm running with it.

Just like last week, the race was fairly local, so I left at the last minute. I got out of registration at 9:50 for my 10 am start. They were a few minutes late and after pinning my number up and squeezing into the skinsuit, I managed to get in one lap of the mile long industrial park course before heading to the line. A dissappointing field of only 19 riders comprised the 45+ race. I had one teammate, Johnny C, just back from 5th place in the 50+ race at criterium nationals, and there were two CCBs, and about six Gearworx riders. With a small field like this, you know the race is going to bust up quickly, so despite being outnumbered, Johnny and I immediately went on the offensive and started attacking on the first lap. There was a lot of feeling out, as nobody was going 100% because you had to save something to chase the inevitable counters.

I covered a few moves, then Johnny went with a dangerous looking counter. Of course, John's a former NHL player with a ferocious sprint (and he is pretty big dude too), so most riders are not too keen about having him along in a breakaway. His move got brought back, and Bob Bisson (Gearworx) countered, and I was right on him. The rest of the Gearworx team was apparently content to let us go, and we quickly took fifteen seconds or so lead. We got a bell for a tire prime, and I decided to take it, so I ditched him on the hill, took the prime and kept going. And going. There was still about fifteen laps (of twenty) left in the race, but I figured the worst thing that could happen is that those guys would have to work, and bring Johnny up to me. I ended up getting a nice solo going, and got another prime which turned out to be some sort of miniature bike light. With about ten to go, I was getting tired, and I could see a chase coming after me. I kept going, as it was only two guys, and so I made them work for a little bit. At nine to go, I sat up and let them get me, so that I would be able to recover a little.

Turns out it was Joe Rano (Gearworx) and Gene Petrella (CCB-Evil Empire), no surprise as these are two of the top-ranked 45+ riders in New England. Great. So I skip a few pulls initially, but then I start working, but apparently not hard enough for these two, and they start giving me a bunch of shit. Now, I guess I just saw the situation differently than them, as here we were with like 7 laps to go, and there is no way the rest of the race is coming back to us, so I'm not quite sure why they wanted to keep pacing it up. Furthermore, Rano was pulling for about a nanosecond before moving over and flicking the elbow, so even though I may not have been driving it with all I had, at least I was pulling for a few hundred meters at a time.

Well, they decided to gang up on me, and they started with the old alternating attacks routine. I'm not stupid, so I closed each one down as quickly as possible, and countered their head games with a few comments of my own. Personally, I would rather shut up and ride, and let my actions do the talking, but some guys just have to turn every breakaway into a psych session. We were getting down to less than five laps to go, and I know that once we get to the end they'll expect an attack, so I pull through real strong, and make like I have seen the light and now I'm gonna be Mr. Cooperation. I move off just before the base of the course's only hill (which is by no means a monster, rise is more like it) and Rano pulls through strongly. Then I jump him up the right side. Petrella is on me like a laser, but I put my head down and keep going and now Rano is gone. Cool.

So now I start playing good cop with Petrella, telling him I wanted to work with him all along, and that I just didn't want to give a Gearworx guy an armchair ride to the finish. So we're cool. I do more than my share of the work, but I'm still saving something for the last lap. Unfortunately, no matter what I save it won't be enough, because Gene is a classy rider and when I made my move the last time up the hill, I did get a small gap, but coming through the last turn I could hear him back there clicking up the gears and he closed it down and in the sprint he pulled out a few bike lengths on me by the time we hit the line.

Oh well. Second place is the first loser. I got $50 cash, the tire and the light for my efforts. I'm not sure what Johnny got, because he immediately jumped in the 35+ race too. I rolled around for a while and got some liquids back in me. I don't think this was too taxing, as I had only a short drive home before getting some quality food to eat and more rest and recovery in the AC. I'd have rather just sat in a larger field and maybe made one brief, strong move at the end, but this was OK, I think. Thanks for reading!