Green Tour race report – I WON!!!!

The Greene Tour – Yellow Springs Ohio

Cat 4/5 road race – 42 miles

22 racers

 

The course was approximately 10 miles with a ½ mile climb at the beginning of each lap.  The climb was around 10% for the first half or so then it dropped to around 4% or so for the remainder.  After that it stayed on top of the ridges for about 7 miles then it had a short downhill followed by a short climb then flat again until the ½ mile downhill before the next lap started.  The race started and ended with a 2.5 mile prologue type road, ended the same way.  At the ending it was a small climb followed by a ½ mile flat section for the finish.

 

On the first lap I found myself in a two man breakaway right after the climb.  The other rider asked if I wanted to do make it work and I replied yes.  We went for about a mile taking 10 second pulls when I realized that I was pulling at 23, he was pulling at 19.  I quickly realized that just wasn’t going to work.  We sat up and got back in the peloton.  The rest of the first lap there were a couple of more accelerations but nothing too bad.  The downside was that my left hamstring was trying to cramp up.  It had me pretty nervous, I was hoping that I could losen it up on the next climb.

 

Lap two I found myself first up the climb and feeling pretty good.  My plan seemed to work as far as loosening up my hamstring.  I tried to keep the pace up for a little while.  This seemed to work because we were now down to 15 riders.  I managed to stay towards the front the whole lap, actually I spent way too much time at the front but that’s another story.  I launched a few more attacks trying to separate the field a little, mainly out of corners and on the small climb.  This must have worked a little since we were down to 14 by the time we started the third lap.  The cool thing about this lap was seeing the four F-16’s flying in formation.  That was pretty cool!

 

Lap three was more of the same.  I kept finding myself at the front which was not my goal.  The wind was definitely making it’s presence known but I still kept doing work at the front.  I launched a couple more attacks but nothing came out of them.  I must say that this was by far the most aggressive I have ever raced.  It felt awesome!

 

Lap four there was a small attack on the climb by one of the skinny guys but it didn’t really amount to much.  The group got back together, well 12 of us did, then we kept on going.  At one point the group slowed down a little and the other two almost caught us.  We sped back up before they were able to though.  Then one guy attacked, and it was a good attack.  He did it on the small climb and nobody reacted.  Before we knew it he had a nice gap.  We finally got organized and a few of us started taking pulls.  One guy took a monster pull, about a mile long.  It finished him off though and he dropped shortly afterwards.  After this there were three of us pulling.  Then it seemed like I was the only one pulling.  I got tired of that after nobody would pull through so I sat up.  I told them that as far as I was concerned he should win the race, if they weren’t willing to pull I wasn’t either.  Afterall, why do all the work just to wear myself out and get dropped 500 yards before the finish.  At this point we could tell that the other guy was finished but it still made some other people start working.  Now I could set back for a minute and relax, at least I thought I could.  Next thing I knew two other people had a small gap on me so I had to work.  Now we were on the final short climb.  I caught the three people in front of me (breakaway guy and the two others) and I just started grinding and trying to not get dropped.  When I looked up (and back) there were only 8 of us and we were on the final straight stretch.  I was now the last man.  I had a nice wheel and I was happy until about 400 yards to go.  That was when the guy in front of me tucked in the pace line and left me in the wind.  I had no choice but to go.  I went around to the left with all I had, I have been in this situation before.  I was just waiting for everyone to go around me.  I glanced back and I didn’t see anyone, at this point I thought I may have a chance.  A second later I noticed that to my left there was a wheel approaching and it was approaching quick.  I stood up once more and gave it all that I had left, one last kick.  It was enough, I WON!!!!

 

The other racer congratulated me and once I got my breath we talked for a few minutes, very nice guy.

 

Anyway, sorry the report was so long and hopefully you didn’t fall asleep reading it.  It’s just that I don’t win very often so when I do I want to remember it in as much detail as possible. 

 

~ by lowcel on April 6, 2008.