Tour of the Hilltowns

I had sworn off doing any more hilly races this season after Bow, but unfortunately I had already registered for the Tour of the Hilltowns. The course is in my old stomping grounds, and I know every little roller and twist and turn from Notchview to Berkshire East and on route 9. Also, I’ve felt strong in some crit races since Bow, so I was willing to give it a shot with the 4/5 field. There were some very strong cat 4 climbers in the race, so I was certain the pace would be nasty up the 1200’ vertical East Hawley Road. At 80 kg, my weak W/kg @ LT would surely leave me dropped on the 8% climb, and the plan was to organize a chase and hope to catch the main field before the route 9 climb to the finish.

The wind that morning was incredible, steadily blowing around at least 20 mph. Seeing as though it was coming out of the west, it would make for an interesting finishing climb into the strong headwind. In addition, temperatures were just 60°F, which made for an unseasonably cold race for August. I suited up in my long sleeve jersey.

I sat in as much as I could for the first 21 miles which were downhill to the East Hawley Road climb. Apparently everyone had this idea. The pace was so slow it was ridiculous. There were a handful of semi-hard pushes up some of the rollers, but that’s it. My average heart rate was probably somewhere around 135 during this section which is nearly in the recovery ride zone.

After the more or less neutral first 21 miles, we came to East Hawley Road and sure enough things blew up. I maintained contact with the lead field for only the first half-mile of the 3.5-mile climb, as I noticed my heart rate climbing above 185 which would put me way into the red. I eased up just a notch and settled into a nice groove, climbing at my LT heart rate of somewhere around 180. Initially a lot of riders went by, but in the top half of the climb I was picking them off. Cresting the top a spectator indicated that the lead group had a 3-minute gap on us.

I quickly paired up with a skinny younger-looking rider. We had a little bit of trouble working together effectively at first as he would push himself too far into the red when it was his turn to pull. Eventually we found a groove and were picking up two more riders when we come around a turn and a pickup truck from the fire dpt. is blocking off the road. There were three other riders that they stopped in addition to the four of us. Apparently a tree branch had been blown off by the high winds and caused electrical wires to fall across the course, making it unsafe for us racers.

As we waited more and more fields that were staged behind us caught up and were stopped. It was very unfortunate that it was my field that ended up being split in two, as it pretty much ended my race. We were told that the gap was somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes when we were stopped, and I really think we could have made it, especially with the significant tailwind that was to come in the next 5-10 miles.

This must have been a race promoter’s nightmare. Probably around 200 racers were stopped, then rerouted around the dangerous section before being restarted. The rerouted section involved somewhere around a mile or two of dirt roads with large rocks and steep pitches. Most people walked their bikes over a good portion of it.

So we get restarted, and the twenty chasers or so in our field were told to just sort of go, with no lead car or anything because we had been dropped. Fair enough, but for some reason a statey pulled out a lead the way for us anyways. Cool. So the twenty of us are trying to stay enthusiastic with nothing really to race for, but there’s no way anyone was giving 100% at this point.

Maybe 5 miles or so after being restarted, the statey made a right turn down some road that was not the normal course. A NCC rider commented after the turn that he didn’t think this was right. It wasn’t really a big deal at this point so no one said anything as it was a turn in the right direction. However, the road bombed down a steep grade, probably 12-15%, went over some deadly potholes, then made a sharp left-hander. The two racers in front of me were very close to going down, another rider lost his chain. Just after this though we were back on route 9.

As expected, the headwind was ridiculous. At first we weren’t organized at all, and moving along at 16-17mph on the flats. The NCC rider did a great job of organizing us into an echelon, despite a few riders having no idea how to make it work which caused a little bit of yelling but whatever, at least we were going to finish some day soon.

The last five miles are about 5% grade average. With 2.5 miles to go we were still rotating around nicely, when I locked up wheels with the guy in front of me as I rotated on the back of the echelon to the forward-moving line. I think there must’ve been a huge gust of wind or something because his wheel came back rapidly at me just as I was moving over. My weight was leaned in the direction I was moving, and it resulted in me crashing. We were only going 10 mph, and I was actually able to click out and hop on my right foot without totally touching down. Unfortunately my rear derailleur impacted pretty hard and was bent. I tried to hop right back on but as soon as I did my chain went over the top cog. I shifted down a few gears and got it to work, but I was now 50 meters back. I pushed hard into the wind but couldn’t close the gap. Every time I would try to pick up the power gears would skip back and forth between cogs. By the time I made it to the top of the climb and through the finish I was pretty darn frustrated. What a crazy series of events.