Sterling was a mostly uneventful race for me. I’m focusing more on time trials for the next few weeks, and when I got on my road bike Friday night to spin on the bike path it felt a little unfamiliar and awkward. I probably would have skipping this one if it weren’t so close to home, so I showed up to race with no specific plans.
It was a mild and sunny day, temps around 60 and just a little wind. The ¾ field went off in the 1 PM wave so it was a nice relaxed morning too. We had a strong group of guys in the race and were looking to get into a break. I wasn’t too excited about doing 7 laps and 8 times up the finishing climb.
From the roll out I was pretty uneasy. Had trouble clipping in and nearly got sandwiched between the two guys in front of me. Forced me to put my foot down and I lost a few spots. I didn’t really settle in until after we went live and the pace picked up.
The race goes live after we crossed the start line and someone up front must’ve been attacking because we immediately strung out. I was planted somewhere between half way back to the back third of the bunch and couldn’t really tell what exactly was going on. The roads on the back part of the course are narrow to begin with, and they were in pretty rough shape on the right part of the lane making the course even narrower. This made it difficult to move around more than a few positions here and there. We stayed strung out until shortly after turning onto route 12.
A headwind on route 12 slowed up the pace significantly. It was a good thing too because I was a bit gassed from hammering along the back section of the course. I needed a break before turning back up the finishing climb. We weren’t allowed into the passing lane along Rt 12, and the wheel car was honking repeatedly at the offenders. I found some space along here to move up on the inside.
On the gradual uphill leading into the center of Sterling there was man-eating death hole on the far right of the road. I was lucky and had just tucked into the field when we got to it. A few of the guys were not so lucky and ended up with flats.
I hate the turn onto the finishing climb. Everyone wants to carry their speed into it and we’re guaranteed to bunch up elbow to elbow. It must be so much nicer at the front for this turn. I’m a lousy climber, and wasting energy on climbs is something I can’t afford to do. At the end of lap one I was lucky and didn’t need to brake despite touching people on both sides.
The climb itself was surprisingly manageable, but the pace stayed hard well after the climb as attacks went off. It seemed like a new group broke off here on pretty much every lap until the right mix was finally established. On lap 2 a large group of maybe 20 split off the front and it was a mad dash along the back to catch up.
Somewhere in the midst of the lap 2 chaos I got caught behind a split, kind of similar to Turtle Pond. I didn’t freak this time, and waited for someone else to bring it back even though I was only 3 wheels behind it. I waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity, but it was probably more like 3 or 4 minutes. When we turned onto Rt. 12 again I dive bombed the outside and pulled us back together. It wasn’t until passing under 190 that I finally got to sit up and recover. The group of 20 that had snuck away on the climb was back with us too.
Starting the finishing climb for lap 3 I knew I was in a bit of trouble, not very well recovered from my previous effort. Coming around the turn I was forced to brake and slow way down. I came by the finishing line hurting but I still had some reserves. As we came up the second part of the climb a lot of riders started getting dropped. I found a good climbing rhythm and passed a lot of them until we got to the top. At this point the field accelerated significantly, and there were still gaps in front of me. I couldn’t close up the gaps as easily at the higher speeds and that was that, race over.
Sterling was the last race of the spring road races for this season. I’m off the next two weekends, and the next race up is the CT Stage Race. After that it’s pretty much nothing but crit races for all of June. It’s been sort of a long early part of the season with very few races that really suit me. All of the pure cat3 races have been hill road races and the only crit I’ve done was a stacked p123 field. I’m ready for a change of pace!
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