Yesterday was a long day, and I'm waiting for it to warm up today, and don't feel like cleaning my bike yet, so I may as well get this over with. No results were posted for the 40+ race, and reports are some of the others that were posted are messed up, but for me it's not relevant anyway.
Short version was that I think I rode well, better than where I finished, if that makes any sense. I knew going in that I was too lightly raced this season to be competitive, so the primary goal was to fight hard and get an ass whoopin' for myself. Goal accomplished.
Longer version: Beginning with the obligatory equipment selection file -- I was one of the few with no arm nor leg warmers. I thought it was quite comfortable. Unusual, as I tend to wear more clothes than most. I rode my Slim, with GP4s and a 39x27 low gear. I had Tufo S33 Pro tubular tires that I've ridden here before and at Mt. A. Before the race Gewilli asked about tire pressure, because CX guys obsess over that. I told him I don't know; I pumped them up a few days ago and I'm sure some leaked out. In hindsight it was dumb not to check. I'd put 120 psi in them on Wednesday. That is a lot for me, but Tufo recommends high pressure. With a squeeze test they felt hard, so I let out a tiny bit, but not enough. They probably still had 110+ in them, too much for this course with tubulars. 95 would be more like it. More on this later. I had two flasks of Hammer gel, one slightly watered down. I had a large bottle of Clif Electrolyte mix, and a small bottle of plain water. I also had one 10 oz Fuel Belt bottle of each in my pockets. After reading horror stories about how the wheel vans won't stop for backmarkers, I decided to pack a spare tubular and an inflator too. All this added up to well over a kg in my back pockets.
We had 125 signed up, but it looked like less than that on the starting line. Maybe 100-110. We rolled out of town S-L-O-W. Kind of a surprise. The first 10k are flat and we were curb to curb due to the slow speed. There was a lone escapee I think. I was mired in the back where I usually am, hoping for a fast, strung out charge into the Eagleville covered bridge where I could move up the side. That did not happen, but about a kilometer from the bridge the gutter opened up and I went right to the front just in time for the hostilities to begin. I am poor at holding my spot up front when things go slow, but when it's aggressive and lined out I do much better. The race to the bridge was pretty aggressive -- like sprinting into a black hole. I was pleasantly surprised to cross in about 20th, maybe even getting in the photos this time, bonus.
After the bridge things got very aggressive going into the first dirt road. Shuffled back a ways, but on the Perry Hill climb it thinned a bit, even though the pace was not severe. Looking back at my graph though, this was the highest HR I hit during the race, not good this early. I had heavy legs. Felt like shit sitting, and the load in my pockets was annoying while standing. Still, the pre-ride paid off. After the descent, took the turn onto Juniper Swamp Road maybe 35 riders back from the front. The climb did not go so well. My legs were feeling very heavy seated, and I was quickly in the 27. Trying to stand was futile, even where the road looked good. Things had softened up considerably from when I pre-rode the course, and my overinflated rear tire was definitely not helping. Thankfully, I had a fairly clear shot and went over the top about a few spots ahead of where I started, with about ten riders who were gapped by 10-20 seconds from the lead group of 25 or so. After a brief chase down Juniper where I took two turns at the front we caught on just before Rich Road. It was touch and go for me there as I was tail-ending all the way down the descent and out of Shushan.
Up 64 I got some recovery. The pace was not high, and I'd made the initial selection which looked like around 45 guys. For me this was a best case scenario. At the top though, Zencycle and about a dozen compatriots bridged up from behind, so I guess the pace was a little too relaxed. Down the descent and through the village of Salem even more may have come back, because the big teams with a pair of riders up the road had things well shut down. So well in fact, that our follow vehicle started megaphoning us that the Cat 4 field behind was catching us. So more riders may have got back on by drafting them too.
A few k before the Joe Bean Road climb our pace heated up a bit, but we had over 50 in the group, about half of what we started with. On the climb of Joe Bean, feeling good at the start, or at least better than on Juniper, I got too aggressive in my moving up. I like to jump across little gaps from wheel to wheel. That's how I climb best. But my lack of racing and absence of special high-intensity training (S.H.I.T.) this year caught up to me. Pushing myself into the red zone, when we hit the next steep pitch I started sliding backward, so going into damage control mode was necessary. Near the top it's not as steep; that is the good news, the bad was that of course the pace picked up. Finding myself again with about ten chasing riders, we could see the group 15 seconds or so ahead on Ferguson, where of course there were a lot of flat victims. Chasing hard, it appeared we were still losing ground. Then at one point I noticed not one, but two groups, maybe 15 riders each, up ahead. So we were chasing a chase, never an easy predicament. We passed Jonny Bold who had a flat or mechanical. His teammate Sammy Morse was ahead waiting for him, and he summoned another team mate who was in our chase to wait as well. Back on pavement, we were still gapped by 20 seconds or so, but those two came back to us (sans Jonny, for some reason) and that helped our cause. After a few k we achieved grouppo compacto on the road to Greenwich, and it was around 35-40 riders total. But the Cat 4s were on us again. A bunch of guys from our pack had glombed on to them and they came shooting across the gap. So now we were back to close to 50 riders. Strangely though, our follow car had disappeared, never to be seen again (at least by me). We still had a break up the road, so no pace car to neutralize us and let the 4s by. Their pace car driver led them through anyway, pretty insane against oncoming traffic as we were a sizeable group did not slow down much. When they went through it looked like only 20 guys or so, which explains why they were riding so hard.
Through Greenwich we had a separation of a few seconds ahead of our bunch, so at least we got separated. Into the feed on Burton Road an impressive chase of about ten more 4's rode through us. After that things got a little crazy. Gaps were opening, and our field was splintering. I was having trouble crossing gaps when they opened. By the end of Burton I was still in contact but it was a battle for me. Things were also confusing as the 4 pack ahead was disintegrating and we were also sweeping up stragglers from earlier fields. Mountain Road got a little chaotic. It was a prize fight for me, riding at threshold, avoiding all the soft spots, trying to get around squirrely riders and close gaps; it was somewhat of a losing battle. I was yo-yo-ing and our group was splintering too. By the downhill portion of Mountain I was gapped, but me and Paul Richard (CCB, who may have been coming back from a mechanical) put on a valiant chase, which turned out to be a chase to the death for me. We caught the group just as the dirt of Mountain ended, and I popped badly on the paved rise leading to Becker. At least 10 riders went right through me right there, all of whom could have contributed more to our little chase but did not. Maybe they were just being smarter than I.
Around the corner onto Becker I was blown and the groups slipped away. An official car of some sort (I don't think it was our original car, but maybe it was) passed me. I rode through a few stragglers but could not see any group, but then I bombed the descent and got back around the car, and could see a lot of riders in the road ahead on Meetinghouse. There were a lot of trouble victims standing at the roadside along the way too. I was somewhat rejuvenated and TT'd Meetinghouse, making up time on the descents. By the end I was almost on a small group which included Zencycle, but they slipped away before I got there. On the wet descent and through Center Cambridge I chased hard with two other riders. They missed the left onto Rt 59 because the official car guy went straight to talk to some marshalls, so now that I think about it he must have been an observer not attached to our field. I let the twosome catch back on and the three of us hammered the long downhill to the bridge all friggin' out, riding right through anyone we caught. At the base of Stage Road we just got on grouppo Zencycle, which numbered about a dozen plus us. But I was blown. I gave it my all just to catch up to Zen and harass him and let him know I was there but then I popped. The tagline on Jonny's blog is "Did you really try as hard as you could?" and I'd been muttering that to myself each time I got in trouble in this race, and Stage Road was no different. But this time I did not have any more and the group slipped away. On the descent I felt better so I think I was just all climbed out. I managed to fight and ride at threshold all the way into Cambridge and the finish just so I could break three hours, finishing in 2:58. I know I rode hard and this will pay off in the races to come, so I'm very glad I went. It was fun too. I was not cold, did not crash, and went home healthy, just tired. Can only guess what the "result" was but I had no team mates and just did the best I could. My guess from hearing other accounts was 10-15 minutes down on the leaders (seems like a lot considering I was with the group just 35k from the end, but that's what I heard) and that there must have been somewhere between 30-45 riders ahead of me. I know I rode better and harder than I did last year when I finished 27th so I'm happy with it.
Thanks for reading.
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