Fitchburg Road Race, Mike DelRossi, 7-2
From the whole Cat 3 team (I believe I speak for the 4’s as well), let me say a HUGE thank you to everyone who came out and supported us today! No other team even came close. I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for all the other riders to have to pass the sea of Cycle Loft bottles to find their solitary support people. I don’t think any of us had trouble getting exactly what we needed when we needed it. Missing a bottle hand-off and having to go an entire lap without water would have been critical today. I saw it happen to at least a few riders from other teams. Thank you a million times! Thanks also to the number of NEBC clad fans lining the course today. We saw you, we heard you, and it helped tremendously. Please pass this message along to all the family members who came out, but are not on our e-mail list.
Another great team effort for us, and we keep the leader’s jersey for yet another day! It was an incredibly difficult race, and everybody out there worked hard, but no team worked as hard as ours did. Scott Brooks’s leadership skills shined bright today with some great decision making that kept us in this race. There was potential for a first lap breakaway to stay out and win the race (they were a minute out for a while there), but with Scott’s decisions and some superhuman efforts from several teammates we were able to reel them back with just one lap to go. On the second lap of the race, Scott sent Adam out to bridge the gap and join the breakaway (which he did….somehow). This would hopefully motivate some of the other teams to start chasing, and if not we’d at least have a man in the break if it stayed away. In the meantime, Dave Chui, Scott Brooks, Gary Duville, and Scott Cole worked their buts off at the front to close down the gap. None of the other teams seemed too interested in helping, which amounted to a ton of work for our guys and a very gradual return of the breakaway. Somehow, Gary still had enough in him at the end to pull the entire lead group of climbers up the final pitch of the Princeton hills and up the first leg of the mountain road. His new nickname is Azevedo. Once Gary split off, I duked it out with the 2nd and 3rd place GC contenders and a very small handful of others (including Andrew Boone) to the finish. It was by far the absolute hardest effort I have ever made on a bike. Ariel Herrmann, the 3rd place GC contender and an awesome climber, made attack after attack and I knew I had to do whatever I could to stay with him as long as possible. We had a 36 second GC lead over him, but that can disappear pretty quick on a climb like that. I stuck with him till finish line was in sight, but couldn’t match his final attack. There were several other riders with us, and I ended up with 5th place for the stage and managed to stay in the leader’s jersey by 18 seconds. If I hadn’t been so well protected today, I never would have made it that far. At the finish, we were approached by several other teams who told us how impressed they were with our organization out on the road. Congrats to the team for another day in orange (my new favorite color)!
Congrats also to Sally Annis who is now leading the women’s’ 3/4 GC and took home another orange jersey for NEBC today!
Wish us all well tomorrow!
Mike