*WOE Racers Jeff, Tim, and Eric pose during warm-up for the NYS Capital Region RR.*
So once again the trip started with a long car ride to Albany, NY to spend the night at a teammates relatives house. We were happily greeted and shown a tour of the house, only to be instructed to make ourselves at home. The rest of the night, was spent talking about the upcoming race and to help Mark, our host, understand a little better how the day would play out. Mark kindly volunteered to work the feed zone for us. Then it was time to fight over who got the extra bed and who got the couch. Which was easily resolved by a quote from “The Mis-Understood World of a Bike Racer.” More or less, he who got the bed the 1st night down not get it the second night.
Well rested and fed we headed to Ravena, NY. All your normal pre-race routines took pace and a little surprise happened to me as well. I was pinning my number onto my jersey, when all of a sudden there was a PFTTSSSSssssssssssssssssssss. The guy in the car next to me immediately went “ut-Oh,” and I soon found out my rear tube decided to pop. Good start to the race, right. Just glad it happened before and not during the race. So in record tube changing time, my bike was good to go again. Finally after anxiously waiting 2 hours, it was time for staging.
*Loop profile of the Race*
The 4/5 race involving Tim and myself, Eric was in the straight cat 5 race. It started off to a 3 mile neutral start;however, it didn’t seem that way. At times my computer would tell me we were going about 20mph. Once the race officially started the pace was very moderate and the field stayed together, with people talking to one another. Upon coming to the first big climb of the day, the front of the field thought it would be a good idea to set the pace at 8mph going into it, with a decent leading into it. With the yo-yo affect in play the field broke up by the end of the climb.
I just missed out on the led group and was kind of caught in no mans land, when all of a sudden…dunt dunt da daaaa….Tim appears out of the corner of my eye leading a pace line to catch the led group. I caught on and immediately was not happy. People do not know how to pace line!!!!! Apparently when it is their turn to pull, that meant sprint and cause hell for everyone else. This killed me seeing I am not very good or use to the continuous short power burst. Never the less we made it to the second big climb and the led group was in site. I took off from the chase group and almost made contact; however, my legs did not want to chase after the climb. Again Tim and his chase group found me and I tried to hang on, but soon was dropped. Caught in no mans land....AGAIN. I eventually found some other members of our race to work with and started pace lining with them.
Coming around for lap two, it was Mark and my big moment......a water bottle hand off. I desperately kept looking for him amongst the large crowed. But once I had found find I through my water bottle, hopefully not hitting him or anyone else, and successfully grabbed a fresh one. See WOE is ready for water bottle exchanges, just not from a moving cars.
Turned out Tim’s group never made contact with the led group, but Tim manage to take second in his group and I managed to solo away from my group to the finish. Overall it was not a very good day, in terms of standings, but a good effort put in by all.
After the race we met up with some of Tim’s friends from Buffalo and talked about the race at Panera Breads. The rest of the afternoon and evening was strictly recovery time and very little was done, except veg on the couch in front of the tele. THEN IT WAS DINNAH TIME!! Mark spoiled us we some awesome home cooking and recordings of the Tour de France.
Altamont Criterium post Coming Soon!!
Good read Jeff!
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