| Ride Stats |
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Distance:
53.60 miles
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Altitude Gain:
2,212 ft
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Avg Speed:
23.10 mph
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Route:
Spokeride
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Avg Grade: 0 %
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Max Grade: 0 %
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Max HR: 0 bpm
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Avg HR: 0 bpm
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Terrain: Road: Rolling
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Bike: Look 585 Carbon Road
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Club: Schuyler County Cycling Club |
| Weather Conditions: Sunny 85 F N wind @ 5 mph |
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Another early rising day to make a three hour drive to today's race at Sackets Harbor on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario near Watertown. Sackets Harbor puts on a festival with War of 1812 reenactments. The town appears to have been an important ship building site in the 19th century and also the location of a battle in the war. Certainly is a beautiful location in the summer but due to it's location it is probably under twelve foot of snow from October to April. It was a beautiful summer day today though and perfect for the race. They put on two races here, one at thirty miles and a longer race at fifty. Both races start at the same time and split two or three miles into the race. Had neary two hundred riders this year with about seventy including me opting for the fifty miles. Had a handful of Cat I & II riders included in the seventy so there was little chance of it being a victorious day. Ride started out easy enough as we rolled out of town. I was not able to get near the front until after the split of the thirty and fifty mile races took place. When I got to the front there were a few riders up the road but none of the favorites so they were left to dangle. First six miles is flat until the first test which is a short steep climb about a quarter mile long. That is followed by rolling terrain to mile fifteen where the course turns and heads inland for a long fifteen miles of mild steady climbing. Thirty mile mark starts the descent back to the start. In the last ten miles there are a few rolling climbs to break it up but nothing too drastic.
Since the pack was letting a group dangle before the first hill I decided to cross the gap and get a jump on the hill. Soon after I joined the lead group a rider on an aero bike hammered off the front and headed for the climb only to pull over with a flat tire on the approach. As soon as we hit the hill our small lead pack began to break up as a youngster in a Liquigas jersey left us. I was climbing next to another rider that just watched the kid go and commented , "It is easy to climb when you weigh 120 lbs." I told him I wouldn't know and got back to my suffering. About halfway up the hill the big guns stormed by and were probably climbing at twice our speed. They caught everyone in the front group including the kid and just kept accelerating over the top of the hill. A demoralizing situation but still a beautiful thing to see. Got over the steep part to see that a group of six riders had opened up at least a two minute lead on me on that quarter mile hill. The rest of the riders were spread out with four or five riders close to me and another four or five between my group and the lead group. We quickly formed a paceline and started pulling hard to chase. We had a couple riders that were pulling at around 27 mph and a couple pulling at a little less. Our failure started with another rider who would only pull at 23 and kept saying we were pulling to hard and we had all day to catch. Not really valid logic though as the lead group had more legs then we did and were pulling at at least 27 mph as we were not catching them at 27 but merely holding the gap. Every time the slower rider pulled through we lost more ground. We did catch all the riders except for the front six as we approached the second long climb at the fifteen mile mark. The front group was no longer in sight. About two thirds of the way up the long climb we caught one of the front six. He informed us that the front group had broken up on the second climb as that group maintained speeds in the upper twenties on that climb. There were three riders left at the front of the race, Cory Burns, Wayne Bray, and my teammate. He also said that another pair of riders had dropped off after he had and that catching the front three was not likely but that we might be able to catch the two in dangling between up if we started working harder. We kept a steady though not fast pace which worked for me as I was working hard to stay on up the climb. Started feeling better once I got over the top of the climb and took off on the downhill as the pack just seemed content to coast down. We probably had eight to ten riders at this point. I kept taking hard pulls off the front and would occasionally open up gaps though that was not my goal at that juncture. I was concentrating on keeping the tempo high and catching the two danglers. We caught the pair with ten miles left in the race. Not being a sprinter I started a series of attacks to try to get away or at least to thin the herd with eight miles left to go. I was able to stay away for nearly two miles on one of my breaks but was reeled back in with three miles to go. Tried to get away on a couple of the small hills near the finish but couldn't shake the pack. Last half mile saw several attacks by the non sprinters who once caught fell off the pace into oblivion. I held on to the end though and finished dead last in the sprint of the six remaining riders that got me 9th place overall. The front three had covered the fifty miles nearly nine minutes faster than us. It was a good race though as I won the 50+ division (got a ribbon!) and my teammate had held on for third overall and first in his age group. Stayed around for the eats and a bike raffle but alas didn't win the raffle.
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