Rocky Springs - Day One

Loaded up Woody’s truck and headed out of town Friday evening, arriving in scenic Bossier City some time around midnight. Five hours or so of sleep and then to the local Waffle House to satisfy Charlie’s waffle craving before making the drive out to the road race.

For the 57 mile race we had four guys, Charlie, Mark, Rick and me, along with a few riders from Colavita,Team La S’port and a couple of other clubs. There was a 3-deep points bonus hot spot near the end of the first 14-mile lap. That sort of thing often seems to keep people on the defensive, and indeed it seemed like most of the pack was intent on waiting for the hot spot sprint. The Colavita riders, however, made a few attempts to slip someone off the front, but the pack wasn’t letting anything go too far, so we came into the hot spot en masse. The sprint was at the top of a short climb and although I wasn’t really too focused on it, I ended up 3rd, which was good for something like one point. My legs had been feeling a little achey all morning, so in a way I was pleased that I was able to handle the uphill sprint without a problem. The sprint opened a gap and there was a brief effort to keep it going. I took a few fast pulls at the front, but everything came back together on the long, fast downhill that followed as we began the second lap.

Lap 2 of 4 saw my teammate Jay roll off the front solo and unchallenged until the rest of the field figured he wasn’t coming back without a fight. For the better part the lap I was busy up near the front covering attacks and generally disrupting the chase effort – in a nice way, of course. At one point, Jay had maybe a minute on the pack, but after the course turned into the wind his lead started to erode. The pace in the pack was varying from 20-26 mph, and although my soft-pedaling at the front was keeping the average speed down, it was clear that Jay was starting to have trouble. I thought he might be able to hold out until the second hot spot, which would have been good for a free dinner somewhere in town, but the last stretch was on a long, flat, and mostly straight road that made it easy for the pack see him and provided ample motivation to reel him in. Although I wasn’t interested in going after the hot spot, I still covered it in case there was an attempt to convert it into a breakaway.

It wasn’t too long after the start of the third lap that Jay found himself off the front again, this time with one other rider. I thought that combination might be enough, but they just didn’t seem to be going fast enough and were eventually caught after a short and fast effort by one of the other teams.

By the last lap, it was looking like a pack sprint was inevitable, and the pace really started to drop. Masters riders can be a lazy bunch when they want to. At one point I remember looking down at my computer and seeing 17 mph. I was glad that we had been the last group to be started on the loop, because it would have been embarrassing if the Juniors had caught us!

The finish was about seven-tenths of a mile past the hot spot line, and thankfully there was a bit of an attack on the hot spot hill that strung out the bunch and got the speed up higher. For a second, I thought the pack would split altogether. Still, the pace stayed fast enough that the slightly uphill run into the finish wasn’t too slow. I was sitting in maybe 5th spot and when we passed the 200 meter mark without anyone jumping I was worried and just about to go myself when I heard bikes coming up fast on my left. A few riders got past before I could sprint, and although I passed some riders as I dumped it into the 13, the best I could do was 2nd. Charlie ended up 5th or 6th and Mark and Rick finished with the pack. Tony? from Oklahoma (OKC Velo), who was without teammates and had wisely been watching the other teams battle with each other all day, took the win. Overall, the pace was pretty slow and I was rather surprised that a break never materialized. In fact, I don’t think more than one or two riders were dropped before the finish.

The Cat. 5 race followed ours, and so Brooks and Jason got to race in the searing heat today. Jason said the race was pretty good, and he got some points in the hot spot, but the heat took its toll and in the final kilo when the pace ramped up he started to cramp. He still finished 9th with Brooks 10th in a field of somewhere around 40, so not too shabby.

Tomorrow’s course looks a good bit more hilly than today’s and combined with the slightly longer distances and sore legs, it should be interesting.