Weekend Wrap

At the start of the Cuba road race the air felt cool, at least by August in Alabama standards, and as always seems to happen on this course a little break rolled off down the road early. The pack was only moderately interested, preferring, I suppose, to wait for the long climb at mile eleven. Before we got there, though, we passed the scene of a big crash in the Cat. 1/2/3 race that had sent a couple of guys to the hospital, one with a broken clavicle. By the time we went past, there were just a couple of guys, one of whom was holding a shredded carbon-fiber bike. When it comes to bikes, "the lighter they are, the harder they fall."

So the early break was brought back around the hill at mile 11, and not too long after that there was another attack. I looked up the road and saw jerseys from most of the teams represented along with a few of the stronger riders and knew that with a little blocking it could definitely go. With no teammates in my race, I was on my own, and the place to be was definitely in the break, so I took off in pursuit. I screamed full-bore down a long downhill, and as the break came to a sharp left-hand turn I finally made the catch. It was a good thing, too, because I was about an inch from blowing up completely.

This break seemed to have everything necessary to stay away except for one thing -- cooperation. I don't really know what the problem was, but people were surging and opening gaps and just generally not riding like you should in a break. A couple more guys bridged up to us and we slowly -- very slowly -- started to get a little more organized. I was still thinking that we would stay away, though. A few miles later when we came though the feed zone at the end of lap 1, however, I looked back and the pack was RIGHT THERE. Damn. I'd thought there might have been enough blocking to prevent that, but apparently not. I heard later that a couple of guys took some monster pulls that brought the pack back into striking range.

So soon it was all back together. I dropped back into the pack for a little rest, and just about then a strong 3-rider break materialized off the front. Again, the pack didn't really react and I watched as the gap slowly opened. One of the Alabama teams wasn't represented, and one of their guys was on the front trying to get a chase going. I went up there too and took a few pulls, but there really weren't many others who seemed willing to chase. So with ten or so miles left to go all attempts to chase fizzled completely and the pack was starting to resemble a Sunday coffee shop tour ride. One might have thought that they were starting to play cat and mouse in anticipation of the finish sprint except that there were apparently few cats left in the group. I remember looking down as we went up a tiny little uphill and noticing that we were going 14 mph. I went back to the front and tried to ramp things up a bit just because it was so embarrassing!

There were probably only six or seven miles left when we saw one of the break riders standing on the side of the road with a flat (and no follow car), so now the pack would be racing for third -- or so it thought. Next thing I know two riders, one from Midsouth and the other from Jeep, are flying off the front and the teammates of one of them are sitting there enthusiastically soft-pedaling. It took a little while for me to get past, and when I did I ramped it up to 29 mph or so and closed over half the distance, but when I glanced under my arm all I saw were Jeep jerseys. This was not good, and indeed as soon as I eased up, so did the entire pack.

We were getting pretty close to the last turn by then and I guess they all wanted to sprint for fifth place. The problem, really, was probably that this race was a combined 35+, 45+, 55+ race, so I guess some of them were shooting for higher placings within their age groups. I hate these combined races. The pack just never reacts the way I expect when only a third of them are actually in the same race. Anyway, I was already guaranteed the win in the 55+ age group (hey, we needed the gas money!), so I guess my motivation for the sprint must have been a little lacking. At 300 meters one of the guys attacked down the left side. At the time, I was way over on the right, and the stream of riders who went after the attacker went past on the left and then kind of swarmed over to the right and as we started up the finishing climb everyone in front of me started to blow up. Basically, my sprint was over before it started and so I just shut down and coasted across the line.

Fortunately, Stephen had already salvaged the honor of the team by winning the Cat. 5 Road Race and also the Omnium. We waited around for what must have been well over an hour for the results, stopped at a Subway in Meridian, and headed back to NOLA through a number of rather impressive rainstorms.

Although you wouldn't know it from my overall placings, I had a lot of fun racing last weekend, and since I'd entered my age-appropriate race we even came home with enough to easily cover gas and the hotel, which always makes for a happy ending.