Wells Ave A/B Race - 4/12/09

The weather forecast for Easter Sunday was cold and windy, but with plenty of sunshine. I didn’t really want to do a solo 3-4 hour endurance ride in that weather, so I rolled down to Wells Ave in the morning. It was frosty out, just 35°F when I left my house at 9AM. I planned to race whatever race started at 10AM, whether the B’s or a combined field. There really weren’t many people at the race prior to 10AM (again, it was Easter Sunday), so they ended up combining fields. I think a bunch of riders came down late expecting to do a pure A race.

We had a ton of NEBC riders in the race, some of which I know, some I did not. As the race went on we picked up even more. It had to of been around 15 people that we had in the field. I’m not sure how many total people ended up racing though. There were probably about 50 that actually started, and we may have picked up another 25 or something. Hard to say, but it ended up being a good sized field.

The Pedro’s team lined up at the front for the start and set a fast pace for the first two laps. I had started on the back, and their quick pace caused some separations. There was a pretty significant range of abilities in the field. After two laps of closing down gaps I did my best to stay near the front for the rest of the race. I figured a split was likely to happen and I didn’t want to fall on the wrong side of it.

There were a lot of attacks in the first half of the race, but none of them amounted to anything. Just like on Saturday, there was a strong headwind coming up the finish straight. You could barely notice it when you were sitting in, but trying to pull into it was not easy. I got in a couple of early moves with riders that looked good, but each time we would die out when we turned onto the front straight. I didn’t have any luck going for early primes because there were almost always a couple of people floating off the front.

The bell for the half-way 2-place prime came up pretty quickly. No one was off the front, and I w as five wheels back. I think Alain Ferry ended up on the front pulling for most of that lap. A racer wearing all black attacked hard up the left side on the back straight and no one responded. He opened a big gap and held it to the line. The rest of us sprinted for 2nd. Coming around turn 4 Mike Rowell sprinted up the left side with a few riders on his wheel. It was early, and the headwind was strong, but their speed was good. I was 2 wheels back from Alain, and there was space on the inside, so I took it. I stayed against the right curb and in the saddle, trying to be as aerodynamic as possible. I was pedaling pretty much as hard as I could for in the saddle and my legs were really blowing up. For a second I considered giving up, but I was still alongside the MKR train and no one was on my wheel. With 200m to the line two racers opened up their sprints. It was still too early for me, and I kept plugging away with my head down. The pair really started blowing up about 50 meters before the line, and I came out of the saddle with my best sprint. I managed to bring back the slower of the two, but the faster finished a half bike length in front of me.

That long 30-second sprint was a maximal effort, and shortly after Skip Foley went crushing around us with a counter attack. I was going so much slower than everyone around turn 1 and up the back hill that I was afraid I would cause a crash. There was nothing I could do though, my legs were trashed. Luckily, things were so stretched out that by the time we made it to the downhill back straight I was still being overtaken and found a wheel. The next 3 or 4 laps were intense as the stronger riders tried to force a separation. I moved up to maybe the front half or third trying to avoid being left behind a split, but I was on the rivet the entire time. I spent a lot of the following laps trying to recover.

With 6 laps to go I was feeling better and I was within 5-10 wheels of the front. My legs were pretty shot but I was still motivated to work. I had just finished chasing a move, and I probably should have rested for a minute or two, but I was determined to stay in the rotation. Coming over the hill on turn 2 the pace flipped suddenly to ultra hard. I pedaled harder, and harder, and harder, and I was barely holding the wheel in front of me. In fact, I was practically sprinting all-out in the saddle. I think Alain Ferry was on the front again this time really making us suffer. This caused a serious split and only one rider was behind me. As we turned onto the finishing straight I blew. I flipped my elbow to let the lone rider behind me know I was pulling off. Shortly after a chase group of five riders or so charged ahead to bridge to the split. I tried catching a wheel but again popped. My legs were fried.

There were 5 laps to go and a split of 15 racers or so were up the road. NEBC had Brian and Peter in the split, both strong riders. I spent the next lap recovering, and took notice of who was left behind. Roy and Dave were still there, as were a couple of Pedro’s guys who were on the front. There were a couple other motivated looking individual riders there as well.

The correct team play would have been to block at the front and let Brian and Peter duke it out in their group of 15. However, Wells Ave is a training race, and soft pedaling at the front can hardly be considered training, so I took some pulls at the front despite having teammates in the split. I worked my butt off for those few laps and the split was caught just as we came around for the bell lap.

I was about 10 wheels back when we caught the split, so that put me about 25 wheels back when it all came together and I was unable to get out of the middle. Dave drew a gap on the back straight while trying to give a leadout, and committed to it once he realized no one was on his wheel. The pace behind him was fast, but not insanely fast as no one wanted to pull ahead. The sprint up the final straightaway was unusually slow with the stiff headwind. I didn’t have legs to come around anyone and pretty much just hopped from wheel to wheel all the way to the finish. I might have been 15th or 20th across the line, but well back of the front. I’m not sure who finished at the front, but I think Brian managed to stay ahead in 4th place.

Another fun race at Wells and it capped off a good weekend of racing. My legs are pretty much toast today. Next weekend I’m headed out to New York for Battenkill. We pre-rode the course the other weekend and I think it’s going to be a ton of fun.