Yellow Line

The racing season started for real on Saturday at the Turtle Pond Road Race in Loudon, NH. Promoted by the MetLife team, TP has been on the calendar for quite a few years now. I have never done particularly well there, but there's still a lot to like about this race. MetLife has always done a good job organizing, and the parcours is interesting, an 18k loop of rural NH roads, mostly rollers with one sizeable climb, where the finish used to be. The course layout has been changed around several times as those in charge searched for something to ease the logistical challenge of setting up a race staging location and a finish in an area that hasn't got much going on. Last year they added a second climb on a chicane-like "Hot Hole Pond" road, but it wasn't really safe to go racing through a popular fishing spot with cars parked on the shoulders, so that go nixed this year. The finish remained in the new location on the fastest part of the course though, rather than on the original big climb. We would do five laps, 90k. Got it?

Last year I elected to race with the 35+, as they go in the afternoon wave, but this year I got up at the ass-crack of dawn to make the 0910 start for the 45+ with six of my BOB teammates. We had four experienced all arounders, including myself, along with our chronically wounded but reliable sprinter/captain Duano, and two guys who had not raced very much at all in the past ten years, just coming in to get their feet wet again. The field would number around 60 starters, I think, with OA Cyclemania having about nine guys, many of whom are known to be very strong escape artists. There were also several dangerous men new to the 45+ group this year, like Thomas Francis (Bike Barn), Tobi Schultze (Fuji), and Fabio Piergentili and Peter Brennan (Galaxy). Sunapee had three or four guys too.

Hilljunkie already reported on his perspective of the race over on his blog. Let's just say he reads a race a lot differently than I do. But I think everyone could agree that OA was the team to watch here. Sixty is a lot for a masters race, but it's becoming more normal, and with almost ten guys and narrow roads like we have at TP, controlling a race was certainly possible for them. However, masters teams generally don't have an off the bike director, we don't have team follow cars, and even the pros aren't allowed radios anymore. Weird shit happening can usually be guaranteed...

And for me it did not take long. The first time up the hill is supposed to be neutral, as we start right at the bottom and they don't want everyone swarming the staging area an hour early like in cyclocross. So we're rolling up the hill and saying hello to one another and suddenly there is a bike stopped in the road. Some guy had dropped his chain, and instead of using his front derailleur to put it back on, or at least putting his hand up, he just stopped. I ran right into him and got knocked off my bike. After pausing to say a bit more than hello to him, I remounted and sprinted onto the back of the field, as the allegedly "neutral" pace was high enough to cause concern.

This put me solidly at the rear, and on the descent a trio of riders were already attacking the field. I knew one would be an OA, and I could see one in a plain blue jersey, but I did not know the other one was Schultze. On my team, we knew we did not have the horsepower to contain all the strong guys in the field. With the downhill finish, our best hope was to keep the race together and try to setup Duano. But there are ALWAYS breaks at Turtle Pond. Even I stayed out solo here for two laps a few years ago, but unfortunately they were not the last two laps. In hilly races, generally I judge it best to let a break go if it does not go on a hill, as anybody can get a gap when the field is not going hard on the flat parts. Turtle Pond is kind of an anomaly though, as the hill is not that big, and the entire course is rolling. Successful breaks can go anywhere. Still, we did not think OA would be content with just one guy out of their nine up the road, especially isolated against Tobi, who was the best sprinter in the field. As it turned out, they were OK with it, and their guy was Ron Bourgoin, who is also a fair sprinter. Never found out who the other guy was.

So within minutes of the race start, we have three guys riding away, eight remaining OA guys plus Tobi's teammate John Grenier patrolling the front, and the other fifty of us packed in behind with the stupid yellow line rule under which we race in the amateurs. At one point on the backside you can see about a minute ahead, and they already had almost that much. Still, I wasn't panicked, as (a) they did not go on the hill, (b) there was 80k to go, and (c) OA had to be planning on sending more riders across at some point.

When we hit the hill at the end of lap one/start of lap two, the officials gave the time split at 2:00! The follow car, who had been busy honking at us and screaming about yellow line violations (which are all occurring way up front out of their vocal range) is supposed to go with the break if the gap is one minute or more, but they were asleep at the wheel. So the guy guns it by on the climb. The good news is this effectively ends enforcement of the yellow line rule, and now we can actually race. Fabio immediately lit it up, taking several of us right around the OA gang-block that was soft-pedaling up the climb, and he kept it going, attempting to organize some chasing on the rolling descent. He and I initially took long pulls, and the Cronoman joined us, as did Leo Devellian (CCB). Eventually Dougie got in the line, but he sort of just rolled through. Francis was not doing anything, there were no Sunapees (weird, as normally they are the best organized of the masters teams in our area), and Grenier and OA were just sitting on us, of course. About halfway around me, Timmy, and Eric were getting gassed, and it was obvious that were this tempo setting successful, the real beneficiaries would be everyone but us. Counters would surely come on the climb and we'd all get popped. So I called timeout for our team.

Fabio seemed pissed, as he was the most determined motor up there. We were on mostly descending by then anyway, and I did not expect the break to be gaining more time. We had to wait for the hill and try to split the field, so that at least if we were working our asses off in a chase, we wouldn't be towing every swinging dick in the group. When we got to the line, the gap was announced as four minutes! I was deflated. I thought overall the field had ridden lap two at a decent clip, yet we still lost huge ground. At this point, at least OA might get back in the race, as they would have thought their guy was safe. As it turned out, he had some sort of problem and had dropped out of the break and the race, but this did not get communicated to them, so they were blocking for nothing. Maybe some of them knew, as leading into the climb Hank Pfeifle set a high pace. I came off his wheel on the steeper part and tried to force it further, hoping for a split. At the top on the little flat spot Dougie and two others came around and started riding, but Pfeifle sat up, took his hands off the bars, and turned around to check the gap. When he did, he swerved over about three feet, collecting Mark Suprenaut (Team Type 1) who was sprinting around to get with Doug, and John Grenier (Fuji) who was covering. Soups never had a chance, as this was not a swap of wheels, Pfeifle rode straight into Mark's handlebars. Soups and Grenier were out with bike and body damage, but Hank got up and rejoined. The field had been split on the climb, but the crash took any cohesion out of the front, and it quickly came back together.

I don't remember everything after that, but I think the next lap Francis took off on the climb and there was nothing anyone could do about it. He rode away solo. Several riders, including me, tried to get breaks going on the backside of the course. Mine got nowhere, but Fabio countered and Pfeifle went with him, and they rode away. So now it was Tobi at four minutes, not sure if the unknown guy was with him or not, then Francis, then Fabio and Pfeifle a minute ahead of the pack heading up the climb the final time. The top five paying spots were all gone and secure. As on every lap but the first, I was able to climb at the front with the good riders for the first time in years, but by now my legs were smoked and getting away was a pipe dream. Duano, our sprinter, had already dropped out due to pain from a lingering groin tear. Timmy attacked repeatedly on the last lap, at one point getting a promising gap, but he was pretty tanked too. I made a last gasp effort to bring back two OA guys going into the corner leading onto the finishing road, School Street, and that left me on the verge of cramping. From then on it was just try to stay out of trouble in the high speed sprint. I though Sunapee would set up a train, but they didn't. I followed Mark Thompson down the left, but he kept getting cut off by leadout riders riders swinging off. Devellian took the table scraps prize for sixth over Jay Carrington (Cyclonauts) and Billy.

I still like this race. I still dislike the yellow line rule, or the way it is implemented as a restriction, but not consistently enforced. Good officials in some areas allow riders to move up safely as needed, and I think that's the way it has to be, rather than playing roulette with being made an (rare) example of and DQ'd. The last four laps of this event we were able to move freely and it was a lot of fun. Turtle Pond would be better with the finish on the hill in my opinion, but at least our race was safe, other than the incident caused by momentary inattention of one rider. Me personally, even though I'd planned to delay my fitness progression by a month or so this season, I feel better on the bike than I have in years. I've gone back to a lot of my old training methods, doing off the bike training in the gym, lots of cruise intervals, not running at all, and doing 90% of my training by myself. I guess all the little things are adding up. Rest week now. Thanks for reading.