Sunapee Cat 4 Men- 5-17-09
Sunapee Road Race Report, Men’s Cat 4, 5/16/09
By Ed Ting
Ed Ting 24
Paul Jobin 32
Geoff Martin 44
“Geoff, this seems really slow.”
I was talking to Geoff Martin, lamenting the conspicuous lack of speed during lap 1. Maybe it was the wind, or maybe no one felt like attacking that day. Although this was a harbinger of things to come, my remark could not foreshadow just show f***** up things would eventually become later on.
Actually, other than the general slowness during the first 2/3 of the race, things went uneventfully. There was a small attack on the turn onto Rt 103 near the end of lap 1, but the group covered, and we went back to cruise mode.
Then, on lap 2, just after the right turn onto Rt 103A, I noticed our pace car, a silver Honda Civic, suddenly slow down. The car’s brake lights came on. I was near the front of the pack at the time, and seeing this woke me up.
“SLOWING! SLOWING!!!” We shouted. I glanced quickly over my shoulder, hoping the riders behind got the message. I heard some shouting, and some cursing. Everyone wanted to know what was going on.
What was going on was, we had ridden so slowly that the group behind us (Masters 45+) had caught us. Their group consisted of a 4 man break, with the main pack about 30 seconds behind. This created a huge mess, with three packs of riders and two pace cars getting tangled up. They neutralized us, and let the M45+ groups pass.
I’ve been passed by groups before in races, but the problem is, this time they didn’t wait long enough before letting us start racing again (I heard later that one of the Cat 5 groups also got passed, and the officials had stopped the group.) The end result was, there wasn’t enough room between the back of the M45+ group, and the front of our group. They kept semi-neutralizing us to keep the gap at a reasonable size. Because of this, we spent much of the last one-fourth of the race trying to avoid smashing into the back of our pace car.
Since everyone was well rested, it all came down to who could sprint the final .4 climb out of the rotary. I am generally lousy at this section of road, but for some reason (pent up energy? general frustration?) I was able to follow the wheel of my friend Dave Penney all the way up the access road, passing people along the way. I crossed the finish line in 24th place.