Norwell - Cat 2 - Men's - 7-29-08
After a sleepless night of leg cramps and nightmares of never-ending hills, I prepared for the Norwell Circuit race with mucho coffee and an egg and cheese. In its second year this is sure to become a classic with great payouts and a fun fast course. NEBC would be represented by Peter Bradshaw, Roy Van Cleef and Rebecca Wellons (as there were no women’s fields). Roy and myself met in downtown Boston and rode out to the race to try and loosen the legs from the efforts the day before.
The race was started under overcast skies, but we were in extra good spirits with Peter Chiu winning (woooo!) the Cat 3 race right before we started. The race started fast. Roy attacked and was caught, I attacked and was caught, Roy countered and was caught. I wasn’t back on the front when Roy’s break was caught and the next attack stuck.
Nuts. Right before we started Scott had shouted, “Do something worthy of a race report!” and all I could think about, as the break disappeared, was writing, “showed at Norwell with tired legs… let the break ride away.” NOT. Chodroff (Empire Cycling) attacked at the top of the hill the next lap and no one responded. He seemed motivated so I went after him. We worked well together but were joined by some hanger-on-ers. Steve Weller (Fiordifruita) and Adam Sullivan
(Kenda-Raleigh) both had teammates up the road and Ciaran Mangion (CCB) wasn’t looking to pull through. Chodroff and I finally goaded the others to start pulling through with about 6 laps to go as we were not closing the gap to the break and wanted to stay away from the field. Shortly there after we were joined by Sean O’Rourke (Kenda), Al Donahue (Nerac) and Chris Hong (Kelly Benefits). This really added some firepower to our group and with 1 to go the gap to the break was about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, the gas was turned off and we didn’t
close the gap even though it would have put Kenda (with 5 riders) 3 to 1 in the break. I sat in and waited for the sprint. I took the inside line up the hill and got a clear shot to the line for 3rd in the group (bested by O’Rourke and Mangion) and 8th overall. Roy and Rebecca
finished with the group for 20th and 32nd respectively.
-peter B.