WMSR - Cat 3 Mike DelRossi 7-22
Hey everybody,
Thought I’d share my experiences from Working Man’s Stage Race, which concluded last night to much fanfare including an ambulance ride for Scott Brooks. Let me wish both Scott and Brad a speedy recovery; both will be off the bike for a little while. NEBC left a lot of skin on the road this week.
GC results from the 2/3 race:
Mike DelRossi – 7th
Scott Brooks – 24th
Roy Van Cleef – 28th
Scott Cole – 31st
As a team we had a few unfortunate turns of events out there. Roy was on his way to a great TT on Tuesday, but missed a turn and lost a lot of time. (who needs to pre-ride anyway?). Also, as you’ve heard, Scott Brooks and Scott Cole both crashed out of the points race last night.
As for me, this was not a ‘priority’ race, but I gave it my all anyway. I had two goals. The first was simply stage race training in preparation for GMSR. Usually, in training, I follow a hard day with a recovery day. I need to get my body accustomed to the 24 hour recovery needed for stage racing. My second goal was to see how I mix it up with the cat 2’s. This was a combined 2/3 race, weighted toward the 2 side (including some of the area’s better cat 2’s). As for a result goal, I was hoping for a top 10 finish.
Stage 1, TT: A 6.6 mile course that I found to be a little difficult because of the multiple turns and hills. Hills usually benefit me in a TT, but I could do without the turns. It was very difficult to settle into any rhythm on the course because every mile there was either a rise or a turn that required a change in tempo. Anyway, I had a good run; no mistakes, no traffic issues, felt good. The one thing that worried me on the course was some strong wind in the first stretch, and I remember hoping that would be just as bad for everyone else. In the end I was only good enough for 11th place. But with the exception of the 3 TNM guys (Andrew Boone and friends), the rest of the guys that beat me were cat 2’s, so I felt pretty good with 11th. Roy was having a great TT, but missed a turn. I have to imagine his time would have been pretty fast.
Stage 2, Road Race: An 8.8 mile circuit using many of the same roads as the time trial. One good hill toward the end of each loop with a long downhill/flat into the final turn. We did 5 laps for a total of 44 miles. Scott and I had discussed the fact that there would almost certainly be breakaway attempts and it would be important to stay toward the front and watch for them. Sure enough the attacks started immediately. The first attack of the race managed a slight gap, and we had one guy in it. I was a bit too far back to see it happen, but I believe it was Roy up there. That one came back and not long after there was another. Scott brooks, who was riding next to me at the time jumped up and got in. That one came back quickly and Scott stayed at the front to respond to a few more quick attacks, none of which got anywhere. At the beginning of the 2nd lap I was riding toward the front when the riders at the front attacked. I jumped to stay with them as did most of the other guys at the front. I was sure the whole group stayed with us, but after a couple minutes I realized that about 10 of us had broken off. Looking around, I realized that I was in the company of all the top GC guys. If any break was going to survive, this was it. We immediately organized into a double pace line and basically had a team TT going. I was worried that with more than 3 laps to go, we would get caught, but everyone seemed pretty motivated to work. At one point on the 3rd lap, I glanced over my shoulder to see the peloton about ¼ mile behind us. I was pretty sure we’d get caught on the next lap, but to my surprise we actually managed to widen the gap a bit and hold them off. On the final lap, there were many attacks in our group, but no one was willing to let anything getaway after all that work. We climbed the final hill together, down the hill, and into the final turn. I went into the turn in about 6th, and managed to sprint my way to a 4th place finish. The 3 guys in front had caught me off-guard with an early sprint. I bridged most of the gap but was still a bike length behind when they crossed the line in a true photo finish. I managed to jump from 11th place to 5th in the GC.
Stage 3, Points race: 80 laps around a ¼ mile oval auto-race track. Every 5 laps there would be a sprint for points, with the top 4 scoring. This was really the only day of the 3 where it was obvious to me that we were in a cat 2 race. The pace was extremely high, more so than I expected. It was also a lot more dangerous than I expected. We had a one man crash within the first 10 laps which required the ambulance to come out on the course. The race neutralized for a bit and then resumed. At some point about 15-20 laps in, there was a very loud crash right behind me on the back stretch. They immediately neutralized the race again and everyone sat up and kept spinning around the course. As we came by the crash site for the first time, there was still a tremendous dust cloud covering the fallen riders (they had crashed into the dirt on the inside of the track, tumbling over a paved pit road). I could clearly make out Scott Cole laying face up in the dirt; he had not yet moved. However there seemed to be more attention being paid to the other rider on the ground, who i could not identify at the time. Andrew boone rode up next to me and told be it was another NEBC rider. I knew Brooks had been riding right behind me at the time, so I was fairly sure it was him. As we spun around the course slowly, we saw (in 1 minute intervals) Scott being strapped to a backboard and loaded onto an ambulance. At one point I left the group and stopped to see what the story was. I was told he was ok and would be taken to the hospital for some precautionary testing. The officials ended up stopping the race and lining us back up at the start before resuming. They denied our requests to finish the race as a standard crit, doing away with all the points sprints. They did, however cut 15 or so laps out of the race to get it over with on time for the next group. After watching all of that, I was pretty spooked and it took me a while to get any rhythm back. I stayed close to the front of the race, but couldn’t really contest the sprints. The problem for me was not the sprinting, it was the tempo at which we sprinted from. My heart rate was close to it’s limit going into the sprints, and I didn’t have much more to give when the time came to jump. I tried for a handful of sprints, but unfortunately kept ending up in 5th (no points). I did squeeze a few points out toward the end with a 3rd place sprint and 4th place on the final sprint for double points. I fell back to 7th place in the GC, but was happy to make it home alive. I did get my top 10 after all.
Heal up Scott!