450 miles driving and 50 miles of racing. Maybe a hotel room would have been a good idea. Palmer race on Sat was probably as close to pro-style as I will get a neutralized start and neutral support from SRAM (aka we just bought Zipp-drool at our station wagons covered in wheels....) It is sad that the only way I will have Zipps on my bike anytime soon is if I flat in a race where there doing support....
Palmer was killer. Awesome 3-4 mile climb, uphill finish. Got dropped by the front group but battled back with a dude from NH (good work!), got caught by another chase group who wouldn't work! WTF? There are 8 of us, we can get back on. The battle for 21st could be in full effect if you would work. Once we hit the finishing climb, people were going backwards in a hurry. I managed a mid-pack 37th and got some nice cramps in my calves catching and passing mister 38.
Sunday was not quite as nice weather wise. Overcast with a touch of rain. The course was longer, but not as hard. The bunch was all over the brakes and bunching up like crazy. Yellow line rule got enforced to a couple dudes horror. Thumbs up to the Marshall. Guys who blast down the outside of a group and then push in seem to cause most of the accidents I've seen this year. I dropped out after the 1st lap. I felt OK, but the group was all together and really twitchy. Felt like a crash waiting to happen, so I chose prudence over valor and soft pedalled back to the car. Billy battled it out with the young ones and got to see the crash that marked the finish of the 35+4/5s. That made me feel smarter for bailing.
I am still mulling over the accuracy of my observation on the inverse relationship between Cervelos/Zipps and bike handling skills that seems to rule the old man cat 5 world here. More research maybe necessary.
I am bummed I forgot my camera, cause there was the best ever front yard sign for someone selling "NightcrawlerZ". Hell Yeah.
Big thumbs up to Michael Norton and everyone who worked to put on this killer weekend of racing!
1 comment:
Awesome. All that winter training is paying off.
sxe 4 life
Post a Comment