A rushed report on the past weekend's racing. This is going to be crap, as I'm too busy to post, but I don't think I've ever let it go nine day before; that's flirting with blog abandonment. Saturday we raced up at Sunapee, the 37th annual edition of the race, making it a New England monument. If there is a road race with a longer tenure, someone please point it out (Fitchburg was just a crit up until the 90s).
We had 92 starters in the 45+ race, including lots of talent spread across the big teams. Corner Cycle elected to make things harder on themselves by racing down in the 35+, but OA, Keltic, CCB, Fuji, Mystic, Cyclonauts, and everyone else except the host club of Sunapee (who all sacrificed and worked the event) were there. On BOB we had me, Marro, Billy C and Garry S. I have not been feeling too fit this month, and I think I messed up my training cycles, but that is a subject for another post. Suffice to say that Sunapee is one of my favorites, as I have a good track record here, thus making it an "A" event when planning my season, but I knew going in that I wasn't on the form I wanted.
I expected the usual suspects would try to form an early break. We did not have anyone on our squad who was willing and able to cover such a move successfully. The best scenario for us was for the field to stay together to the greatest extent possible. Since I wasn't warmed up all that much, at the start I rolled off first and went right to the head of the race and tried to ride a brisk tempo. My thoughts were that maybe I could set a mood for the day, or at least for the first half lap, where the pace would stay high and nothing would get away. And it seemed to work. The OA and Keltic guys sent attacks off, but me and some others were always at the front making good tempo and no big gaps materialized.
On the Route 11 climb (the old feed zone) Hank from OA went to the front and set a hard pace. I followed him, but felt way to stressed to think about going around. Luckily nothing came of it. The rest of the lap it seemed there were just too many "riders to watch" and this meant about 15-20 guys continually jockeying at the front in order to be in a good spot to cover moves. The end result was nothing ever got up the road, even on the climbs. The second lap we saw the Cat 4 pack ahead, and nobody attacked until after they were neutralized and we passed them. The second time up the Rt 11 climb the race got quite animated and started to break up. Four guys got a small gap, less than ten seconds, on a group of about twenty of us that was strung out at the head of the race. The rest of the field dangled behind, in danger, but not entirely ridden off. Keltic had a guy in the small leading move, and two guys in the group of twenty trying to slow the pace and let the break get away. Mark Suprenaut (Team Type 1) was driving the chase, but they just sat on him. I would have liked to have helped, but I was hanging by a thread a few riders back. The blocking efforts of Keltic allowed the rest of the field to come back together on the descent, but Soups had kept the break close enough that the job was soon finished off and it was all grouppo compacto.
On 103A the last lap I faltered a bit. I was sort of holding my spot, but not moving up on the climbs, and not close to the front. It slowed on the last hill and I got back up front. On 103 with 5k to go, I had good position, but no confidence for the finish climb. I should probably have just waited, but I race on instinct and on one rise there was a slowing and I knew I could get a gap so I went, pulling out a few eeconds. But on the next roller my gap evaporated as quickly as it had formed and the field went right through me. The Cronoman had a go at that point, but they were on him straightaway. From then on I was soft-pedaling in to save my legs for the TT on Sunday, and I don't really know how the final uphill kilometer played out, but Billy ended up 4th, which is a stellar result against a field of this depth.
The TT report from Sunday, and the KSR preview will have to wait. The day job beckons. Thanks for reading.
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