North Stonington Classic, Cat4, Geoff Martin, May 21
NEBC-er’s
Geoff Martin 34th at 3’26”
Bill Doonan 40th at 4’04”
Weather: 60 deg. Sunny, some clouds – getting windy
Race:
This is one of the most picturesque little races in all of the region.
There’s a winery (race sponsor) at the finish, dry stone walls,
picnicking spectators, the lot. I recommend it for a lovely day out.
It’s got a steep-ish, slightly stepped climb from 1km to the finish. You climb it right out of the neutral start and then do 4 full laps (and climbs). The lap is a short 5 mile square with leg one pretty much all descending to a fast right hander and then 2 legs of rolling terrain to lead you back to the climb. The roads are fairly narrow – but as you’ll see this doesn’t matter too much in the end.
Lap 0
Position at the start is key as the “neutral” start is on the flat and
the race begins at the foot of the climb. I (part luck) managed to have great position and climbed up slowly slipping to mid-pack by the top.
Lap 1
The descent scares the crap out of me to be honest as it has several divots in it jst as you’re getting your speed up. Nevertheless I tried to be as brave as I could and held position fairly well. I stayed with the pack pretty well avoiding some people touching wheels (no-one down) but could not improve my place on the narrow roads before the climb. I concentrated on spinning up rather that trying to use bigger gears and this seemed to help and I remained in touch for this climb
Lap 2
But as often happens here the selections were made at the top of the climb as the group fractures into 2 or 3 pieces on the short, exposed flat section after the line. I could not quite make it onto the tail of the second group and ended up working with a rider in a 2-up TT effort to catch stragglers from here on in. We caught up with 4 riders after the descent but as they weren’t working terribly well I sat in only until the climb began. Again I chose smaller gears than usual and led by a few bike lengths from the rest of the group. Only my erstwhile 2-up partner crossed over to me.
Lap 3
I told him we should focus on catching the next 3 stragglers who were not that far ahead and we worked through this lap in a haze of hard work, traded pulls and got briefly neutralized as the 123 leaders (group of about 8) blew by. We later got passed by a larger chase group and here I made my biggest mistake. I eased up way more than my compadre to be good and let the group go by. They actually took a while to do it and I lost his wheel big time – he had at least 20 secs on me as he began the climb and so I climbed #4 on my own unable to make any ground back
(I was starting to get way too burned up from all the chasing).
Lap 4
Still chasing on my own – got caught by a group of 4 guys in a good paceline right after the climb was done – jumped in and took a few sneaky rests preparing for the final climb. Unfortunately on the very last leg we were caught by the 123 field and there were at least another 8 cat 4’s who surely must have been ‘surfing’ the back of the 123 pack (illegal no?). This changed things as we hit the final climb from a tactical 5 man finish to a veritable “bunch”. I managed to hold my own but not really gain any. I saved a little for the slightly flatter last 200m but apparently so had the guys ahead and we ended up without any further changes. I stuck around the finish area to see Bill Doonan finish up a short while after me. Apparently he hadn’t managed to get positioned well during the ‘neutral’ start and had trouble from the first climb. He said that at least he got to work in some groups and not have to solo along for the 20-odd miles.
Conclusions:
Worked well to have good position on lap 0/1 but not enough
chutzpah/strength to do the same on lap 1/2 when it really counted. Worked hard afterwards but at a slightly more manageable level. Climbed OK the thought of doing the hill again (and again) was actually slightly worse than actually climbing it.
Regrets – easing off on lap 3 when I lost touch with my 2-up partner. I didn’t want to be a jerk – but clearly there’s more room in-between being a jerk up front and a nice guy off the wheel. Also being caught by the group of 4’s who were rolling behind the 123’s – I would have preferred the smaller group for the finish climb and could have done a few places better without the extra ‘fresher’ competition. B’stards!
Considering I’d put in quite a bit of effort the previous day (see
Mike’s Sunapee Cat4 report) and done all the driving to NH and back and then down to CT I should be happy – but it would have been great to break the top 30. (I think the guy I spent so much time with finished 28th)
There’s always next year – maybe I can just watch with a glass of wine!
Geoff