Mississippi Grand Prix - As Luck Would Have It

It was finally a weekend I could race.  Well almost.  I jumped in the car late Friday afternoon for the two-hour drive up to Brookhaven, Mississippi for the annual Mississippi Grand Prix stage race. I was scheduled to help with officiating of the Cat. 1/2/3 evening criterium, after which I'd be relatively free to race. I wasn't entertaining much hope for a great placing, but it was already May and I desperately needed to jump into the deep end if I was ever to get in shape this year.

The Friday evening officiating duties went smoothly and despite the bad finish line camera images.  The 60hz flicker rate of the halogen lights and the camera's 1,000 hz frame rate result in the camera storing a number of slices while the lights are, essentially, off. The result is an image with vertical black stripes that make it hard to read the bib numbers. Anyway, by the time I'd sat down to eat dinner at Broma's, Ricky had already sent me the Crit results to post.

Saturday morning was surprisingly cool, but with our master's race start time set for 9:30 am, I knew it wouldn't be a problem, even for me. There was a decent-sized field of 20-something, as we set out for the first of three laps.  The course had a couple of significant hills and lots of little rollers, so I thought that would take it's toll by the end of the almost 60 miles we had to complete. The one really decisive hill was about halfway around the course, and I knew my fitness level wasn't quite up to it yet this year.

We hadn't gone very far when one of the riders rolled off the front without any response from the field.  I motored up to him, initially just to cover it so there wouldn't be a big chase later.  After trading pulls with him for a while it was clear that the pack was letting us go, and although I had no illusions about our being able to stay out there, I started thinking that if we could just make it up and over the big hill we could spare ourselves having to respond to the inevitable attack that I knew Jerry would launch there. We still had maybe thirty seconds when we came to the bottom of the hill, at which point the other rider apparently dropped his chain and I found myself alone.  No worries, I thought, I'll just ride easy tempo over the top and be ready to jump onto whatever was left of the pack on the other side.  Well, as luck would have it, Jerry attacked hard at the bottom of the hill and I was shocked when a string of five or six riders came blasting past me halfway up the climb. They came by me like I was going backwards, and although I tried to respond, I was just too gassed by the top to close what remained of the gap. Moments later other riders started coming by, so I got in with them and we ended up with a nice little six or seven rider chase group that included three of my own teammates.

For most of the rest of that lap we were holding the gap pretty well, but as we started the second lap the cooperation lagged and the gap suddenly shot up to a minute and a half and I knew the chase was over. A mile or two later I felt my rear wheel going soft. I dropped to the back and when we got to a smooth section of road I bounced a couple of times and felt the rim hit the ground. I raised my right hand to get the attention of the follow car, shifted to the small chainring and small cog, and rolled to a stop. With only one person in the follow car, and my own 1-speed wheel buried in the back of the pickup truck, and the quick-release not set up correctly, it was a few minutes before I was rolling again. I still had the better part of 40 miles to ride, and since there was no chance whatsoever of catching even the chase group, I knew my GC chances were shot. I settled into an easy pace and rolled around the course, thankful that it wasn't too hot, and enjoyed the scenery. I assumed I was the last rider on the road, but after I finished I was surprised that there had been a nice little group just a couple of minutes behind me the whole time.

So the afternoon time trial was on a new course that turned out to be about 70% downhill. I really should have pre-ridden it, but since my GC chances were hopelessly down the drain (I think I was well over ten minutes down), and since even on a good day I wouldn't have made it into the 5-deep stage prizelist, I wasn't very motivated. I looked down at the computer about half a mile after the start and saw a speed in the low 30s, which was a little surprising since I was not putting much pressure on the pedals. I think I had a max of almost 36 mph without really trying. About a mile from the finish I finally came to a steep climb that had me out of the saddle and looking at 14 mph for a little while. I ended up with a time about a minute and a half slower than the winner, which was about mid-pack and no surprise at all. At least there was the criterium on Sunday.

Watching the Cat. 1/2/3 Criterium

The Master's criterium was a nice 60-minute one on the same course I've ridden for years. With little to lose, I decided to ride near the front, get some good training, and try to make it into the top five. I tried to do a decent warm-up, and was glad I had. From the start Jerry took the lead and thanks to a quick clip-in I was right on his wheel. The first three laps were very fast, and indeed a number of riders were dropped for good as I clung tenaciously to the wheel ahead of me. When I finally looked down I was dismayed to find I'd forgotten to start my Garmin. The pace eventually eased, and I could tell that Jerry and his teammate Tim were going to wait for the points hot spot before making another big effort. As I'd suspected, they went hard for that hot spot, taking 1st and 2nd place. Scott was 3rd with me on his wheel, but the two riders had opened a bit of a gap in the sprint. That's when I made the mistake of staying on Scott's wheel as he backed off.  Granted, I was pretty much at my limit, but it would not have been impossible for me to have bridged up to the lead duo. As they went around the next corner I saw one of them look back at the gap and then they looked at each other and I knew they were going to go for it. That was about the last we saw of them. With them already leading the GC, the other riders in the group were not showing any real interest in chasing. We ended up having a few real lulls in the pace over the rest of the race.

Finally, with two laps to go there was a hard attack up and over the hill that nearly shattered the whole group and I had to dig pretty deep just to close it. Unfortunately, nobody followed through once it was caught with a lap and a half to go, so it was gruppo compacto again for the last lap. I don't really know when or how Scott opened  up such a big gap on us, but he crossed the line with a second or two to spare and then Michael F. slingshotted past me, leaving me in 5th place. I was actually reasonably pleased with that under the circumstances. I felt like I'd ridden a decent race and considering that I'd been dropped like a rock in the last two races I'd done, at least there was some hope.