Turtle Pond was the first of a double header weekend of road races with Quabbin Reservoir following on Sunday. Turtle Pond is one of the few New England road races featuring a fast flat finish that suits the sprinters. The course includes a moderate hill on Oak Hill Road but the Hot Hole Road climb was taken out this year. It seemed to bother some of the climbers that this was left out, but the climb isn’t really long enough to bother the most sprinters anyways. From a selection point of view I would have liked to see it in the race to hit the anaerobic muscles a bit.However, last year a fisherman was back his boat into the pond and nearly took out our field. It felt a lot safer having it removed. Cat 3’s did 5 laps totaling 57 miles.
Most of the New England teams were well represented and none were significantly overpowering.Svelte had the most racers with 6.Cambridge, Threshold, Quad, CLNoonan, CCB, NEBC all had 3 or 4 guys. Half of the 51 starters were riding for a team. For NEBC it was Keith, Joe, and myself.
It was a nice day weather-wise, 50-60F and sunny, and I think most people were highly motivated to race. As soon as we crested Oak Hill and went live the attacks begun. The first few were highly unlikely to succeed being on the rolling downhill. As the course started to flatten out the moves started getting more distance.
Keith got in a move that went through the successive 90 degree turns. We were already really strung out and you could feel the tension in the bunch. Keith’s group got caught shortly after the second 90 degree turn and the field seemed especially gassed from sprinting out of the turns. Being a criterium guy I like the turns so this was obviously my time to counter. I went hard for about a minute before flicking my elbow for help. I had dragged 3 guys with me, two of which were Sunapee and I’m not sure about the third, maybe CLNoonan. After rotating through just once I was pretty gassed. I think I attacked too hard and the hills weren’t letting me recover. I skipped a pull to recover.
After just a few minutes of being up the road I noticed riders coming up behind me. We were approaching Hot Hill Road which I didn’t realize had been taken out of the race. I thought these riders were part of the peloton, so I soft pedaled to get some shelter before the climb. It turned out that this was only a small group of three or so, and that the peloton was a little way back yet. Oops. By the time I realized this I couldn’t grab a wheel.
Luckily Keith was in perfect position as I came back, and I think he countered along with Leo and another rider or two. We had Joe sitting up there as well to encourage some splits. The perfect mix of riders was up the road and we immediately went into shutdown mode. Svelte, Cambridge, Quad, CLNoonan, Threshold, NEBC were all represented.
It was pretty much game over after that and we started crawling around the loop. By the time we finished lap 1 the break was 2 minutes up.Initially there were probably 14 in the break, but I think it was whittled down to 12 by the end. A CLNoonan rider came back after a lap or so, which led me to believe that they needed to chase. And they did chase, however afterwards I realized that they had a second rider in the move so they probably didn’t need to.
Laps 2 and 3 were easy going and the lead stretched out to 4 minutes.By the 4th lap the riders without teams were really groaning. There were some good efforts made to bring back the break, but they were too sporadic to make much of a dent. Bridge attempts were useless with so many teammates left in the pack. Conversation in the peloton turned to whether it was worth sprinting for the finish or not. It seemed that with a few riders having come back from the break we could potentially be sprinting for 10th place, so why not. We were here to race after all.
The pace up Oak Hill had been very gentlemanly on lap 4, but on the last lap a lot of racers seemed to let out their frustration there and the pace was hot. I had taken the fourth lap to rest for the final lap, so I was mid pack when we began accelerating up the hill. On the steeper upper half a lot guys were going backwards and it was important to avoid ending up behind a split. This didn’t mean accelerating around the sag climbers, instead just keeping a nice steady pace and paying attention. Coming over the top of the climb ~4 guys had gone clear and I was in a second group of 10 or so. The front 4 sat up pretty quickly and so did our group when we caught them. I wanted to push the pace for a few minutes to cause some separation, but by the time I got to the front I think we were mostly groupo compacto. I still took a long pull just for the heck of it.
Coming through the two 90 degree turns I was third wheel behind a pair of Svelte guys. The guy on the front had a quick chat with his teammate on second wheel, and shortly after the guy on front slowly pulled away. Very sneaky move.Being third wheel it was my responsibility to get on it, and I brought up most of the field in doing so.
We were bunching up thick in the last few miles and maintaining position was key. Svelte and Cambridge had a large presence and seemed to be trying to set up for the sprint. A few solo flyers went off but nothing was strong enough to stick.
Coming over the last little kicker on School Street there were some attacks and we got really strung out. Between Cambridge and Svelte there was a pro-style leadout train of 5 or 6, and they were keeping a really good pace coming down the hill. It took a lot of energy to move up if you were out in the wind. McKittrick was at the tail of the train and it looked like the sprint was being set up for him. I wasn’t sure if there was a Svelte sprinter in there or not. For the rest of us, it was a battle for McKittrick’s wheel. We shuffled around a bit, but by the time we hit the last flat section I was fortunate enough to have his wheel.
The course kicks right at the 200m to go sign. Nothing steep, maybe 2 or 3% grade. My plan was to kick hard and early as we went into that little hill and hope that my momentum would carry me to the line. Unfortunately there was a moment of hesitation as we realized that there were cars stopped in the right lane right at the finish. We had the entire road from ~400m out and Fortini was quick to capitalize on that, sprinting hard on the far left.He carried his speed up the hill perfectly and took the sprint. I followed his move in second.McKittrick hesitated just a moment longer than me but still crossed in third. I hate it when 2.5 hours of racing ends like that. It’s like Wells Ave disappointment times ten.
Keith rode in the break strong and ended up finishing 7th. After 50 miles of being in the break his legs found a whole new meaning of pain and he didn’t have much of anything for the final sprint. With 12 people up the road I was 14thfor the day. I was happy that Keith got into the break and that I was able to sprint well at the end of a road race. Getting in the break of the day continues to elude me this season and once again I almost found myself in it. Hopefully that day is coming soon.
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