Turtle Pond - Cat 3 - 04/25/2009
David Chiu 13th
Oscar Jiminez 16th?
Jay Robbins ????
I was pretty excited for this race because this year they moved the finish to the flat and fast run-in to the big climb, and added another hill on the back side of the course; which meant the course was no longer about the main 1.2k climb. The new hill that was added in was this short and steep popper that came after the two 90deg right handers that takes the course through a residential area and a cemetery (I seem to remember the race starting here a few years ago), the new hill crested and dropped back down towards a pond before you went screaming big-ring back up another hill towards the Loudon town line and a nice downhill chicane back onto the finishing straight away. From there it’s a 3 mile drag to the finish, which was tail wind trending downhill, with a slight rise at the line, just enough so you wouldn’t spin out.
With such small numbers on NEBC the plan was to play it conservatively, up until 5 min before the start it was just Jay and me when Oscar decided to grace us with his presence; on the 2nd lap going up the main climb I rode the hill at my own pace but found myself off the front with one of the CL Noonan kids I got in the break at Myles Standish with. This little move was short lived as it all came back together by the two 90deg right handers.
Now, I thought I had been paying attention, but apparently not as somewhere in lap 3 a break got established and got up the road. And that was it, no one left in the field was either organized enough or willing enough to help out. After spending some time trying to get things organized with help coming from some of the Pedro’s guys, some of the CL Noonan kids, and our old team mate Julian Gent, I settled in for the inevitable field sprint for the best of the rest.
Coming into the last half lap Oscar turns to me and asks me how I’m feeling, quite literally at that exact moment, both my quads start to cramp up, so I told him not to worry about me. I came into the steep riser on the back side of the course in the front third of the field, and ended up in the front quarter exiting the chicane. I guess I was feeling better than I thought, from here on it was all about surfing wheels and moving forward. The sprint came, I was in decent position, ended up getting boxed out on the right side and came across the line pretty closely with 4 other riders… we were spread four wide across the road and probably only separated by a little bit. Ended up 8th in the field sprint, 13th overall.
Looking back at the race, I should have been paying more attention to the field, because it seems like everyone zoned out when I did, and that’s when the break went. That, and I could have done with another bottle. Fortunately I was in the first wave of the day, the P/1/2 Men and Women had it much worse!