My relocation to the Vineyard for this past summer (and all the previous summers) put a hinder on my intended big summer of racing. But, I had two races that I set my heart on for the year, the Connecticut Stage Race (being right next to my hometown of Torrington) and Fitchburg. I was able to get off island for CT, driving back home and hosting a couple of the GLV riders at my house, and getting amenities for those I couldn't fit at my place. I was hoping for a good GC result, but that also means you must have at least a top-10 in the time trial. I had a hard time transitioning from shorter 2-5 miles TT's to the 8-mile one, like the ones at CT and Fitchburg. It has alot to do with the courses, but I also felt like I wasn't warming up right and going out too hard, finding the last 2-3 miles hurt alot. I finished mid-field, got passed by two monsters in full TT-bike setups. As a key to stage race success, I hope to work alot on my time trialing ability over the winter and through collegiate season. At least I got a cool snapshot:
The circuit race was a bad experience, it reminded me of a certain circuit race at Rutgers where I had a mechanical the second lap. However here, I dropped my chain first lap before the drag up the finish, it took the neutral support guy almost a minute to pull my chain from between my crank and frame, left a nice chip in the paint, dropped me off the back for the rest of the race, and the guy gave me a nice hand print of grease on my new GLV bibs. I had to put some serious hurt down to finish within the time limit, so I could do the road race the next day. I saw nobody for the whole race, except the pack lapped me on their sprint up to the finish while I kept chugging away with one lap to go. I saw one guy ahead of me halfway through my last lap, somebody who must have gotten dropped awhile back, and managed to pass him on the last climb up to the finish to save DFL humiliation. I guess there were a few DNF's too, but it sucks to lose ten minutes on GC just like that. At least I got within the time limit and could race the next day.
The road race was a bit of an epic, 91 miles for all fields (even cat 4's!) but I expected it to be hard for me, being there some steep rolling hills in the second half, and hurting a bit from the circuit race effort. Five miles in, there was a really long desent, and I caught myself with my hands on the hoods, and kinda panicked when I got some violent speed wobbles. I thought I flatted, but I knew I was losing control, and didn't want to go down in the middle of the pack and on the pavement. There was some nice meadow grass on the side of the road, and I proceeded to hit the brakes and slow down as much as I could while gliding into the tall grass, eventually landed gently (about as gently as you can slowing from 55mph), recollected myself, surprised that I wasn't flat, and was paced back into the pack by neutral support. I only had a few scratches on my knee and a nice hole in a new jersey from the number ripping off in a corner. I continued on trying to relax at the back of the pack, and soon felt the need to make my presence at the front and stay near Keith and Mark. I got gapped in the feed zone looking for a feed, not noticing my teammates had grabbed everything for me, and Keith came back to pace me back in. As soon as the steep rollers started, I knew I was in trouble. I made it over the first few, but soon just accepted the pain I was in, from all factors, was too much, and I dropped off the back to solo the last 37 miles, coming in maybe a half an hour down. Not the result I wanted, but it was a good experience racing near home and hosting the team at our first big stage race weekend. We as a team were pretty well prepared, I thank all the GLV teammates and supporters for a great weekend all around, we had some awesome results for the Cat 4 field.
Wow that took awhile, I'll talk about Fitchburg tomorrow.
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