The alarm sounds at 5:00am and I am staring at rain hitting the skylight. I roll out of bed and realize that I am actually a little sore and bruised from a tetherball tournament at Gerardo’s son’s birthday party. Can’t have beers the night before a race, so what else do you do at a one year old’s birthday party. Sounds like a tough start, but look on the bright side; it will most likely be sunny in Sequim. Oh S##T, we are racing in Brady today. Well, grab some cheerios and get your bike on the car since you’re already late to pick up Gerardo. Mission accomplished and we are on our way to Brady. The weather teased us along the way, but we eventually arrived to a rainy Brady, home of the grange which doubles as one of the finest staging areas of the year. Lots of CycleU teammates there and hats off to everyone for the dedication you showed by racing in this foul weather. Looks like there are four of us racing Cat 4 including Brad, Chad, Erik, and myself.
We all threw our layers on, warmed up, and headed for the starting line which was filled with a sea yellow. Bikesale was out in numbers as expected since they organize the race. Looked like the field was between 70-100 riders and everyone was anxious to get the race started and bring the body temperature up. In the first lap we saw several solo or small group break attempts, mostly from Bikesale. With the wind and rain, it was clearly not a good day for break attempts and none of these ever got out of sight. The course is not terribly technical with the exception of a 180 degree corner with about 2K to go on a steep and wet decent (only one crash on this corner the entire race). Our strategy for the first lap was to stay near the front and spread things out on the decent and then hammer it at the bottom to try and split the field. Well, we gave it a good effort, but the main field swallowed us up.
The second lap was not terribly exciting, but I think it was important. Jason Cemanski, the phenom on the Apex team who has won 5 races in Cat5 and won Cat4 at Volunteer park, seemed to be getting bored and decided to initiate and chase several breaks. I was excited to see him continue to burn matches. Every time he did this, the Chad train would run him down. Not too many Chad trains in the Cat5s. We completed the second lap and I really felt like things would start happening at this point. Wrong. Same as the second lap, the Chad threw more coal in the firebox and continued to do the majority of the work out in the front. As a team, we were looking great. All four CycleU riders in the front 15-20 and then pssssssssssss followed by Erik’s hand in the air. Suck!!!!!! Down to three, but still looking strong. At this point, I thought the race would be determined by whoever ended up with good position after the final kicker. It wasn’t easy, but Chad and I were able to pass through a couple guys who were rocking side to side so violently, they took up half the lane. Brad got caught up in this and didn’t get the position for the final hairpin corner decent. Wasn’t sure where Chad was, but I assumed he was nearby. Don’t know how he does it, but Chad is almost never more than 5 wheels from the front. Definitely something I am trying to watch and learn. Anyway, one guy kills it up the hill and has about 150m gap on us, but I am in perfect position at 5th wheel in this chase. We hit the hairpin decent and I took a terrible line almost running into the guy who went wide. I kept it upright and had a lot of speed coming out of this which could have cost me the race. I found myself in the front of the chase group with 2K to go and had flashbacks of Sequim #1 where I led out the sprint with 4K to go and couldn’t ever get off the front and got outsprinted. This was not happening, so I sat up and got the peripheral vision set and started the sit up and swerve going. Finally someone got impatient and gunned it. Fortunately for me he picked the wrong side and I jumped it and he bridged me to the earlier solo break at the 200m sign and then the sprint was on. Crossed the line first and got a quick congrats from Chad who crossed the line in second place. How does a guy who pulls the field for half the race sprint for second place? I am definitely enjoying the win, but Chad pretty much killed this race.
Awesome job Cat4s and everyone else who got out there in terrible racing conditions and threw it down. Let’s keep taking names.
Travis B.
2 comments:
Nice work on that finish. Was your race the one with all the carnage at the finish or was it that start in front of you guys? We had a wild and exciting race behind your race(I was cat5), but we got neutralized for 20 minutes with 3k to go due to that wreck at the finish.
I'm going to show up in cat4 soon with my fellow sadistic breakaway regulars. On one hand, I'm interested to see if we could orchestrate something like that in cat4 and on the other hand, I'm terrified of the finish in that category. gnarly wipeouts!
Do you know who got injured and if they're OK? I heard sirens.
Nice win, guys!
I was one of the Bikesale riders off the front in the second half of lap 1, thinking a break might form so I could warm up. :) After that failed, I decided to mail it in and save it for another day. Couldn't see a damn thing. My teammate Tony was just nicked at the finish by Chad and took third.
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