Mo no blog

Yes, that's right, I haven't treated you to any blog entries this week, but here is some photographic evidence that I've been doing my part to support the cause by wearing my Bike Racer tshirt.

Since last Saturday's wet day at Sunapee, the weather has been mondo cooperative for my vacation. I pounded out over 600k and 21+ hours the past seven days, learning a few new routes in the process. This was more a mileage/duration rather than intensity week, but I needed it. There were a few intensity highlights, such as climbing Killington Road and the TT back to Ludlow, as well as a 22 minute climb at LT during Thursday morning's 80k solo. Later that night, it was over to Loudon for the weekly training race on the NHIS road course.



I've been doing this race occasionally since way back when this venue was known as Bryar Motorsport Park, when it nothing more than a serpentine strip of asphalt along the floor of a gravel pit. The grandstands back then were wooden bleachers like at a high school.



The bike races don't exactly fill the grandstands... They get a good crowd of racers though. There were over 40 in the A race, including at least ten guys from Sunapee. I had a few BOB mates there too. Every three laps of the 1.6 mile road course, there is a sprint for points with first, second, and third across the line scoring. Halfway and the final are double points. I always seem to get up the road at Loudon, always have. My legs were pretty fried from all the riding this week, but I got away early with some other guys, but it ended up with a group of six and I got no points on the first one. For the halfway I bridged up to a group and took 3rd, so since it was doubles it was worth it. For the six to go sprint I got on the Sunapee train, but did not sprint, instead attacking just after the line. One Sunapee guy, Ryan Kelly (no, not the UNH guy who blogs and shares this name), came with me. We stuck it out and got a good gap. I gave him the three to go sprint because he had so many teammates counting on him and I didn't want us to endanger our break by sprinting against each other. We stuck till the end, and I tried to lead it out slow to keep it short but he jumped hard and blew me off. So I ended with a third and two seconds, good for a tie for second on points in the overall. Nice way to end a 145k day. Thanks for reading.