Green Mountain Stage Race Women's - 9-2-08
Clara Kelly
6th
GMSR had a special place in my heart because it was the first place that I ever saw a bicycle race. In 2005, my husband, Patrick, and I came upon the race while driving to a trailhead. We spent an hour photographing the riders on the KOM climb of Middlebury Gap and admiring their wonderful bikes.
A lot has happened since 2005. I now have a light bike capable of competition. I have had a summer to practice on my bike. I was excited for the opportunity to race up App Gap. I was also excited about a stage race that doesn’t require a TT bike. All summer, I was on the fence about the race because it conflicted with our friends’ wedding. By late July, I was ready to give it up. However, after my modest success at Fitchburg, Patrick really wanted me to have the chance to race on App Gap. He was convinced that it was possible to race App Gap on Saturday..jump in the car..take a wet wipe bath..nap while he drove 4 hours…put on a face…party…jump back in the car..put the seat down..sleep for 4 hours while he drove…put the bike together again and hit the start line for the next race. I was dubious but signed up. We later we realized that the road race was actually on Sunday (ie after the night of sleeping in the car) and we would be late to the party. At that point the entry money was paid and we were committed.
Time Trial
20th of 39
The TT course was great. It started off with some climbing, then a flattish ride through the countryside, and with 1 K to go a big dip in the road, and a slightly up hill finish. Total ride time- under 20 min. During my practice I had trouble with getting stalled in the dip. There seemed to be a certain combination of gears required to maintain any sort of speed out of the dip. I had practiced the dip at least 5 times the week before the race but was still wary of it. During the race, I felt like my climbing was strong. I went through the dip like a champ and passed the woman in front my me when she stalled in it.
When I saw my 20th place, I have to say that I was disappointed. I was a full two minutes behind the leaders – who were clearly significantly stronger. I felt like I should have pushed myself a lot harder than I did on the flat part and on the last 500m. Places #1 and #2 were two women who had come out from CA. The top woman from New England was a full minute behind – Silke Wunderwald.
Circuit Race
21st of 39
Two laps for a total of 65 miles. The road was bad on the right sideat the start of the race. The pack was tight against the yellow line and I felt uncomfortable moving through it. It was very hard to advance. I saw many times women passing on the yellow line and once Anna McCloon passing on the dirt and grass of the shoulder. I was feeling resigned to a mid pack position even as we started a slow climb towards QOM. There is corner about 1 K from QOM and I knew you had to have position there for the climb. Someone attacked before the corner and strung the pack out. I passed a number of women on the corner to move into a group of 4 that were breaking away from the climb. When these ladies stood up, they moved ahead like I was standing still. I did not have the power to hold onto the group and was engulfed by the pack….again I was about mid pack at the top of the hill. Now extremely intimidated. Everyone got together at the bottom of the hill and headed around for a sprint at the end of lap 1. I figured I had no chance and just held a wheel.
We were back on the bad road and the race was heating up. There was a lot of surging and slamming on sections of road that were dirt packed. The ladies were pretty good about warning about the holes / deep cracks in the road..so no accidents there. Once we got back on a good road, I moved to the right side of the road hoping to advance on the shoulder. Good spot for me, because I heard a crash behind me on the left. Later on, I was at the back of the pack and realized there was a problem with the rider next to me. She had ripped up shorts and was favoring one side. Not only was I at the back..but the crashed riders had caught back up..good for them. Kept riding along and survived the 2nd QOM sprint. I was mid pack at the sprint to the finish and got kind of freaked out by the crazy sprinting. Scary stuff.
I later found out that the woman that won had a solo breakaway. I have no idea when she got ahead. I guess that is a downside to being buried in the pack..hard to tell what is going on.
Not a good finish for me, but on the positive side, my legs felt decent after the race thanks to not sprinting. It was off to the wedding reception.
The next morning I found out that Silke and her teammate did not finish the race because of the crash. I was so sad because I wanted to race Silke up App Gap. I heard that the crash was caused by a Canadian rider passing over the yellow line and hitting a wheel when she reentered the peloton.
Road Race
5th of 35
Sleeping in the car worked better than expected and I felt well rested we I got back to the motel at 1:30 am. Good thing since I had trouble getting back to sleep and noisy neighbors got up super early for their race. Oh well, back on the bike.
After my practice ride of the course. I was concerned about hydration. In my two practice road races, I had problems with leg cramps. I had decided too much risk in the bottle hand-off. I would super hydrate pre-race and would take 3 large bottles.
The riding to Rochester was slow. I had expected a much faster climb up Brandon Gap prior to the QOM surge. I can’t complain too much though as I was chasing over the QOM. By the time I got my wheel too the line, Ladies were disappearing behind the next turn. I think I hit a new personal top speed of over 55 mph trying to catch up. Once everyone regrouped, it was back to slow going into the wind. I did a few pulls and as much as I wanted to speed things up…didn’t. I had already seen in my practice ride that there is a long way to go into the wind on that highway. I kept drinking to get ready for when things speeded up. I thought about how to ration the rest of my liquid. I realized it was a bad idea to have moved the bottle from my pocket into a water bottle holder as it might come out of the holder on the dirt road. I switched the position of my two remaining bottles to get the full one into the most secure holder. I didn’t think I could get it back into the pocket with one hand.
Once we got off the highway and out of the wind, the pace picked up. I got up towards the front and got ready to hammer a certain steep hill just before the dirt road. I didn’t want to be in the pack on the dirt road with stones flying and bikes bouncing. My best effort at hammering..got me… oh you guessed it…mid pack when we hit the dirt. I survived the first section of dirt intact. I wasn’t as scared about the second section of dirt because there are fewer loose stones and not so bouncy. I was flying hard down that road when I slammed into a hole. I hadn’t seen it because the leaves make shadows on the road. My full bottle shot out like a rocket…and in a moment of self pity..I hesitated and lost contact with the ladies ahead of me. It took a lot of energy to catch back on. It was a hard ride into Bristol.
It took me some time to get into a comfortable place again. I started to scheme about the water problem. I moved around the pack to ask the women I knew if they had any extra water. No, they didn’t. I weighed the options of dismounting to get neutral water vs. climbing Baby App and App Gap without a drink. Audrey Scott Fredrickson offered to bridge me back to the pack if I got neutral water. I declined the offer because I didn’t want to ruin her chances at the climb. As it was, there really was no choice because there was no neutral water..only soda. Fortunately, a rider from PA gave me a half bottle she had in her back pocket.
I admit that I got distracted about water, when the real drama of course was the upcoming break-up of the pack and the climb up App Gap. I wasn’t in a very good position when the ladies from CA made an explosive charge upwards. I did sprint up the right to get on Anna Mcloon’s wheel. She pulled me past a few people before slowing down. There were maybe 3 women just in front of her and I spent too long behind their little group. Once I got past them with about 2 k to go, I could see the two lead women together – significantly ahead. They were clearly on their way to #1 and #2. There was another pair of ladies ahead. For a time, #3 and #4 seemed within reach…but I couldn’t get the speed up to catch them.
Crit
6th of 35
I had serious reservations about the crit which was described as “technical”. I feel like a real fish out of water at these crits. I had spent some serious effort at practicing crits since my first one at Fitchburg 2 months ago to prepare for this day. The moment of truth had come.. had I learned how to round a corner? Could I control my bike hitting potholes and manholes at high speed? Could I hold a wheel through said potholes and corners? My hope of recouping most of my entry fee depended on a combination of me doing well enough and the girl in 7th GC place being a poor sprinter. We were separated by 1 s on GC.
I naively thought neutral start meant take your time. It really meant glue your wheel to the pace car’s bumper. After half a lap , I was third to last and holding on for dear life. Every km, I heard my husband yelling for me to move up. This came in a desperate tone that meant at any moment, I might drop off the back and see my first DNF. After 7 laps (of 34) my legs were tired, I had failed to move up. The situation looked grim.
After a few more laps, my legs came back, the lead riders had got a few preems out of their systems and we were slowping down on the back section. Thanks to some advice Julie gave me before the race, I was nailing the fastest corner and coming out at a full sprint uphill on all laps. I wasn’t doing a great job advancing, but I wasn’t at risk of falling off the back anymore. The long line of riders and small field was working to my advantage since I wasn’t terrified of taking the corners surrounded by bikes.
With 10 laps to go, I was feeling pretty good..excited for the race to be about finished. I was up in the top ten riders. I was holding onto my wheel. With 4 or 5 laps to go, I was ready to go hard. I was going hard. I hit the final turn and hammered. I saw Anna McCloon pass on my right- and moved onto her wheel. We were done. Stop pedaling. Survived another crit.
Then it turned out that we weren’t finished. There was a confusion with the lap cards and we really had a lap to go. What a mess. I had not been watching the lap cards at all since I never planned to contend the finish..heck it was about all I could do to stay on the line of riders. So, my last race of the season ended in a muddle. I didn’t talk with the other women about this so I don’t know if those behind me thought that we did have another lap to go and didn’t sprint all out.
As it went, I was very surprised to finish only one place down from my road race finish. A GMSR miracle.
Sad to say end of road racing for 2008.
Thanks for the support, NEBC.
Cathy Rowell welcomed me to the club in Feb. She, Julie and Annette showed me some real dedication to winter training.
Julie saved me from getting lost in the hill ride – and from freezing to death pre riding the Fitchburg TT in a thunderstorm.
Thanks to the women’s elite and ¾ teams for the instruction in the clinic. Brook advised on how to take a corner. Kathy Martin and Julie helped me get comfortable with making contact with other bikes and riders.
Chris went out of his way to help me get comfortable with downhills and gave a lot of good advice to get me through the season.
Loraine was so kind to give me rides home from Thurs rides and give good constructive criticism early in the season.
Erica and Shannon always made me smile. I think that Erica can made any ride look like a great time. She is so happy to ride her bike!
Sally gave me lot of inspiration for this year plus some good tips about Fitchburg road race.
Katherine Snell is a great teammate..I think she went to every race I did except for GMSR and Hilltowns. Always came with a good attitude. I heard she was hiking on Labor Day weekend, so ok about not going to GMSR. Maybe next time :)