Racing tales from the great Pacific Northwest

Monday, April 27, 2009

Vance Creek Road Race


Sunday 4/26 - Vance Creek Road Race - Elma, WA
13.25 circuit/4 laps/53 miles

Mark Southern and Peter DesRosier did the Cat 5 race in the morning that was 3 laps/39.75 miles. I'll let one of them elaborate on their race

Perfect day for racing(for once). It was nice not to have to wear four layers to race. It was about 65 degrees w/ broken clouds. We all laughed. Our field was limited to 75 riders and was sold out but a team from Wenatchee showed up and begged to get in so we ended up with 82. Since it was opening weekend of fishing season and the course went passed a lake we were warned to watch out for fisherman and some kind of funky hens.I had never raced this course so I wanted to sit in for the first lap and get an idea of what it was like. We started with a neutral roll out and my heart rate was at 178 just from the intensity of keeping the rubber side down. We then rolled onto an old farming road that had no divider lines so we were allowed to use the whole road. Enter the hens. They were these big ass grey things that were all over the road. I would have been pissed to get taken out by a chicken but the managed to scatter off the road just in time. I decided I had good legs and didn't want to be in the back of this large group so I sprinted to the front and got to 5th wheel. I stayed between 3rd and 10th wheel for the whole race working to bridge gaps when needed. There is a nice up hill section that leads to the start finish that is a 200 meter "wall" and I wanted to just make sure I stayed with the leaders up that hill. That would give you a ton of room to go all out on the down hill section. This proved to be true as the 20 or so of us that got their first were able to open up a gap on the rest of the field. About 10 or so more were able to bridge the gap on the flat section. Besides chiseling the field down from 82 to about 30 the 1st three laps were pretty uneventful. A bunch of breaks formed but no one was able to get away. At the end of the third lap I wanted to see if I could fly up the wall and gage how my legs were doing. about six guys stayed in front of me so I knew if they were there at the end I would have trouble winning. At the last 1k of the final lap we still had about 30 guys and the adrenalin started to flow. I touched wheels, had a handlebar hit my ass and a couple of people push off me but no one went down. At the 90 turn up to the last 200meter wall I was sitting 5th wheel and felt pretty good. I went to jump out of the saddle and two Cacina Fresca guys blocked so that they could try to launch one of their good climber. I was right behind them and had to slow for just a second and in that time about 20 whipped by me on the outside. I was able to swing out and did have good legs. I was able to pass six of them in final 10 or so meters but ended up 19th. I was really happy the finish as I was in position to make something happen and 19th out of 82 ain't bad. Next time for sure.

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