Fall River Crit, Julian Gent, July 16
This was very much a team effort on a brutally hot day. According to registration about 60 Cat 4’s started the race, 24 finished, the average speed wasn’t much over 20mph so the weather was more of a factor in this race than the pace.
The NEBC participants included Peter, Jesse, Darrell and myself. Early in the race Jesse took a flyer as he seems to consistently do, he stayed away for 2 laps and picked up two nice primes. Peter was the next to go, the team went into full on blocking mode while Peter escaped. Around lap 10 it looked like it was all over for Peter but another rider who had escaped on a prime managed to join Peter and with Jesse, Darrell and myself sitting on the front and attaching ourselves to any wheel that went by us we were able to break up any semblance of an organized chase. Peter and his new partner quickly built a very good gap. It was kind of funny and kind of annoying but some riders were complaining bitterly that we weren’t doing any work, whereby we would respond why should we, our guy is up the road. Even more amusing were the odd rider or two that would go buy us and pull for a little while and then apologize to us and say “sorry guys that is about all I have” as if they were helping us. Another guy said you guys always race a good race, while we were blocking, I said thanks you should join us, he said no thanks someone has to race against NEBC.
With about 5 laps to go Greg Robidoux, of Charlie Baker TT and Thursday night fame, who had been sitting at the back launched out of the back of the pack with a teammate at a very impressive speed. There was nothing the three of us could do other than pull back his teammate who just joined us and started blocking. Greg used his TT skills and bridged the gap and then left the break and won the race solo. Peter who stayed away for ¾ of the race came in second and picked up a bunch of nice primes in the process including a Lance Armstrong watch.Â
Jesse, Darrell and I spent ourselves protecting the break. It took more than I think any of us expected to respond to every surge and close every gap. There was a late surge that Jesse and I responded to I looked back and saw a pretty good gap so I urged Jesse to keep going. We ended up getting caught and both of us were too spent to muster much for finish.Â
As a team we dominated the race. Jesse and Darrell are awesome teammates who dedicated their races to helping Peter’s break and it worked. We missed the ultimate prize, but I would rather loose to Greg than anyone else in the 4’s.
Peter showed his appreciation of the team effort by splitting his prize money which was a very good team orientated thing to do.Â
Personally, I’m a lot more banged up from my crash on Saturday than I want to admit. I can hardly walk today and it is very painful for me to drive. Consequently. I’m very much in doubt for the WMSR that starts tomorrow.
Anyway, that’s all folks.
Awesome job Jesse and Darrell.