Thanks guys. It was fun driving-up with Ryan this morning. I wish his race was a better one. He seemed to suffer a similar lull that I suffered at Pawling. Perhaps his body knows that Catskills is approaching and was objecting to hilltown punishment... but whatever the reason, he'll be climbing strong soon again.

Positioning for East Hawley Rd. climb: As all the descending began leading down to the base of the big climb, I chose to stay at the back to avoid swervy/wildly braking riders, and planned to make-up time on the brief flat section at the bottom --before the climb. That's what I did last year and it worked. Ryan executed a similar plan quite well. Simple/stupid error on my part: although we had descended the nasty fast decent, I still thought it was ahead of us. I didn't think that descent was so scary, so I was thinking it was still ahead of us, so I stayed at the back... until I saw that we were turning onto East Hawley Rd. So, I managed to make my way up about 20 riders before the road turned-upward.

East Hawley: I saw Ryan about 100 yards ahead of me, so I put extra effort in to get up to him. He seemed to be going good at first, but just before I got to him I noticed his pace was slowing. We pedaled along together for a few minutes, then I realized I was feeling quite good. So I asked Ryan if I should dart ahead... he said that I should if I felt that I could. So, I went onward on an expedition to see what I could salvage from the race.

I moved quickly through the field, finished the climb behind 3 small groups that were chasing another group that I only saw 5-10 minutes later --and that unseen group was chasing the 9-man lead group (which I never saw). So, cresting the hill, I kept pumping hard, passing all three groups --continuing my expedition. I caught sight of that previously unseen chase group exactly when my body asked me to ease-up a bit. I eased-up and waited for two guys to bridge up to me --we started rotating hard. This was fun. We made it up to the "real" chase group and found out they weren't real after all. Well, not a mirage, but seemingly 7-8 of the 12 guys made is clear they were not going to put in any work. I took a moment to eat some gel and drink. Then, I moved up towards the front, nodded to the few guys who had been trying to get the work underway, then grabbed the wheel of the man in-front (a little gap had opened there). Then I took my pull, then I looked back and saw that we had a 20 yard gap. I reported to the guy I was with... he said "let's just keep going and see what happens"... I noted that our chances were gloomy for making anything of it, then we just kept rotating.

We were soon out-of-sight. We did glimpse that group at the feedzone, but we just kept going. I took the uphills, my chase partner "Zack" --being a bigger dude-- took the downhills. This felt good.

Fast forward... we batter strong headwinds along the sun-baked highway with no turns or diversions for many miles. I ponder that the race is really the Tour of the Hilltowns and Tour of the Windtowns. Zack and I mark the background along a long stretch of road... not a soul visible.

5 miles to-go, the last hill begins and it won't end til 1k from the finish-line. I'm not bonking, I'm just exhausted, and the sole finding of my expedition was that my endurance was cracking to splintery fragments on the roads of Western Massachusetts. So, I slow my pace to recover before taking the 2nd half of the climb fast. Zack and I look back and still no followers in-sight. We rest.

Then, as if Sergio Leone was Hilltowns race director... the car behind us changes lanes and there's a posse of might-near a dozen riders covering our tracks about 300 yards behind. "Let's go Zack..." --I start pedaling and feel the bike pull-up to a nice speed. Felt good! Well, for about 2 minutes. Then I started slowing. Looked back, I'd made a significant gap... the posse was 500 yards back or more. I modulated my effort to that which I thought I could maintain for the next 3 miles. I kept it up nicely, not as fast as I wanted, but decent. I looked back the posse had shattered and 2 riders were locked onto me, having made-up about as much ground as I had taken.

... the 2 guys caught me, I grabbed a wheel hoping to hang-on. The leaner fellow attacked and the other fellow responded, I was left behind.

The rest of the posse was closing in... and I still had more hill to cover. Probably 2k from the finish. I shift to higher gear and push harder. Left calf hollers and clamps down on me. I pedal harder. Posse is coming-up, but cramp is gone. I hit the top of the hill, see the red flag and just hold-onto my speed. I cross alone with the posse a few hundred feet behind me.

This was hurting on a bike for sure! But very, very fun!

*** the 12th place is unofficial, based on other riders recollections ***

I hope Stephane and Marc did well in their races!

-Norm

One thing I'd add to Norm's report - when he crossed the finish he had the look of a man who had given it his all!

Bright red, gasping, leaning over the bike, barely able to respond to questions of "you need water?" "you need food?" Very tough.

Congratulations Norm!

Congrats, Norman!

My race report, short version: extremely hard, a lot of fun, had a much better race for 95% of the race than my placing suggests.

Long boring report : Since the descent was for me a cause of concern, although I started in the back, I went to the front and stayed there most of the time till Hawley road. First time ever I'm trading pulls with Dzmitry Buben, 30 seconds or so only because as a rider explained to me later, those who know Dimitry thought that if he could reach Hawley with a gap of two minutes, nobody would see him again before the finish. On East Hawley road I tried to go as hard as I could all the time without getting into the red, accelerating on less steep parts instead of recovering. A group did go away, from which a small group (6 I was told) would constitute a break, including the winner, Dzmitry). I rode in a small chase group, we caught several riders who had not been able to go with the break. About 7 or 8 miles before the end, I thought my legs were touching my bottles, but those were cramps... I stopped pulling as I had done more than my share (only a few of us were pulling, half the group was staying behind us, but we were too tired to get away). But on the last steep bump I had real cramps and had to let the group go away and finished the last couple miles much slower to avoid cramping. Just behind me, Dutka (Mystic team) who had been hammering from the very start, then climbing and working with me till then had to stop five minutes because of cramps and he was getting dizzy. The first in our group may have arrived fourteenth or fiffteenth, but Dutka told me I had climbed very well considering the level of several of the guys who were with us, good climbers (one of them David Kellog, who finished second of stage 3 and of the GC at GMSR in 2010). So my finish was disappointing but the race a great experience. Drank a large bottle right before the start, one large, one small and one neutral bottle, was dehydrated at the end, which certainly explains the cramps. Next time, if it's hot, I'll gladly climb Hawley Road with two extra bottles in my jersey. Because we attacked from the start, we were faster than the 40+, wo were, as usual, faster than the cat. 4.

Yeah, I like Chavanel.

The year of flats. Can someone pull together our RItchey sponsorship? Because I seriously need some new tires and because I'm a cheapskate, I would like to avoid paying retail. Seriously, I see their name on my jersey, it's on our website. Okay. quit your whining Marc, onto the tale.

Pre-dawn showers cooled Western Mass off 30 degrees, but by the time we were pinning on numbers, the clouds had gone away and the mercury rose steadily all day. It was back up to 97 degrees when I was packing up to go home.

Early on in the 97-mile pro race (our race course was diff't than the other categories, in that we bypassed the big climb on our first lap, hit it the second lap and get treated to the beastly hot open road highway climbing stretch twice), I was cruising at the back with Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly), some dude from Jamis Sutter Home, another Jelly Belly and Adam Myerson (Mountain Khakis), because that's how I roll--with the big boys. Seriously, J-Pow's calves are as big as my head, and I have a very large head. Two seconds after we start racing, Powers says to Jamis dude, "Hey, let's start attacking, 1-2, get this party started." And in my head is the very loudest groan I could muster without being so loud as so that others could hear me and reveal me for the big sissy I actually am.

Fortunately the early miles are flat to rolling down and while the field was strung out more than was necessary in a 97 mile race with a 5 mile climb in it, I managed to hang tough. And then the road turned to shit. I really didn't want to be at the back of this relatively small field (roughly 50-60), and when the rollers started tilting up, and the pavement patches and cracks got more and more obnoxious, I was being bounced around like Contador on cobbles. I noticed my brake was rubbing everytime I jumped out of the saddle. And if this race didn't have so many fast descents, I might have just opened up the brake and raced that way all day.

Instead, I picked a lull, which appeared to be followed by some downhill, pulled to the side of the road and made some adjustments to my brake, hopped back on and started to chase. Unfortunately, the field picked up the pace just enough to make it hurt. An impromptu "caravan" of cars consisting of 6 or so cars stuck behind the field formed and I did my best impression of Mark Cavendish hoping from car to car until I got to "com 1." But the field was speeding away on a big ring uphill roller and I couldn't get up to the car.

Crap! Then the caravan of cars drops me too. I'm solo. Alone. I see the field ease up and the road is going down. I slam it in the big ring and chase harder this time, and miracle of miracles, I make it back to the field. Just in time for them to punch it up another little roller, which wouldn't normally have been a problem for me, if I hadn't had two chases in me with no recovery time.

Double crap. OTB. Again. I should have left that damn brake alone. Another rider who needed a bike change bridges up to me and we work a little together and have some conversation.

"Do you think we can catch them?"
"Honestly, not really. The field is rolling route 9 at 28 mph without breathing hard..."
"And we're working to do 25...the pros make it look so easy, catching back on after a flat."
"Yeah, but it's deceptive. Consider there are 18 or so teams at the Tour, and each team gets two cars, so that's at least 36 cars to leap frog."

We continue to roll together until I notice my rear getting real wheel getting squishy-squiggly. Crap. Again? Seriously? I waive goodbye to the young racer, and continue to roll until I feel I'm in "rim-damaging territory." I swing a leg off and start walking and walking and walking. No race vehicles anywhere, I'm 30+ miles from the start/finish. And so I wander down the driveway of a local home/business and ask to borrow a phone to call the wife.

I walk some more, find a shady spot, and wait. Sarah arrives, I change the tube, strap on my pump and saddle bag and continue to ride. I didn't come all this way to not do a five mile climb...

Nice work Stephane. Next year, I'll follow your lead by taking the West Hawley descent at the front.

Marc... great suffering that was, to stop for the flat fix and to continue on solo up that 5-mile climb finishing climb. And I'm sure the awful headwind was still pushing when you rode up --that's some fine endurance! The non-pro course is so tough... I can't imagine the pain your course inflicts.

Marc, I guess Zoltan was in your race, he seemed very upset at the finish. He had had a flat and could not get a wheel because the truck followed the break of three ahead.

The results are posted here (BTW, the times I had seen posted with the first results were not correct)^

http://www.road-results.com/race/1085?utm_source=nccwebsite

The placing of some of strong riders (2nd and 3rd at GMSR in 2010) shows how much the heat was a factor.

A quick report from this Saturday's race.

A full field of 110 riders lined up in was had to have been the hottest weather I've ever raced in. It was gross.

Ragot started off the action early, and drew out green jersey wearer Diolowski. The field was all over it - a sign of things to come. Me, JP, Keith, and Stokes, and Joe traded turns near the front covering moves.

The writing was on the wall for a field sprint, but I didn't want to miss a small move if it got away. The main threats were keeping close to the front, and AXA Equitables was racing like a real team trying to place riders in breaks and then pulling back any break they weren't represented in. The kept the action hot and always had someone on the attack. Foundation was being a bit reactionary and following AXA's moves, or so it seemed.

As it came down to a field sprint we kind of lost focus and didn't really have a plan. Things were getting a bit sketchy as dehydrated riders swerved back and forth all over road. I was trying to move up but not moving up fast enough. JP, Stokes, Keith, Joe, and I were equally spaced across the pack with no rhyme or reason. We rolled in with the field. I'm guessing JP or Keith were our highest placed riders.

Mike

Hi diddly ly Dee a flat for me...

Most welcome flat ever...

This was a fast one. Looks like the fastest L&C race of the year, but not by much. Winner's time was 1:36:45, or 27mph if you took the shortest line around the course, faster if you didn't. My cyclometer said 27.1mph.What was worse is that I think at least myself, Keith, Eric, and Rene were all on bad days.

I was excited that Eric made the first move and was away before anyone realized it--having stokes roll off with him and then be there for the others to "catch" was a good tactic. And, like clockwork, Dioslaki attacked hard the first time up the hill. I tried riding at or near the front in the opening laps and after a few laps, I was hurting. Looked down at my power meter and the power was no higher than usual, in fact a bit lower. Bad sign.

with 110 riders starting mid-summer, the chances of a long break succeeding seemed slight, but AXA was up there trying, and they seemed worried a break would form early. That both surprised me and concerned me, as I couldn't imagine there were enough strong guys to ride off at the speed we were going and if there were, I was going to be in trouble.

At one point, I thought I was going to get dropped at about half-distance. I was just about empty. I tried moving up and would hit the hill and would get dispatched to the back again. Felt bad that I couldn't get up to Mike and Joe up front who looked like they were riding well.

The pace let up on the last lap and I was able to get near the front, but wasn't strong enough to move up with the Mengoni train. And when it took off with a kilometer left, I had nothing to up the pace. Keith came by me. I was surprised no one else was there.

ouch. vacations are draining.

Glad you guys got into the action a bit... with early moves and riding the front. You guys will kill it on the next finish!

I'm considering racing High Bridge Saturday and L&C Sunday.



Anyone else racing this weekend?

wedding-bound this weekend

race hard, my dudes

Officiating

Wedding bound as well. Ill eat a lobster for you folks.

I'm probably going to race PP on Saturday (if I don't stay out too late Friday night and opt for more sleep). I have a wedding Saturday night in Bridgehampton so I'm out for Sunday.

Posted By: mperlbergWedding bound as well. Ill eat a lobster for you folks.

that's what i'm doing!

high5!

i have this crazy theory that melted butter/lemon will get the lipstick stains out of my kit

No, but vomit might.

Lipstick stains?? Cool. On the jersey or bibs?

Lined up to do the final L&C race of the season on Sunday. I expected a hard race, as all the competitions were close enough to see a change in leadership. The rain was sure to dampen turnout. What I didn't expect was how few teams came to defend or help. Overall leader John Durso had two teammates, which is about as much as he's had all season. Sprint leader Dioslaki had one, a junior. His only rival, Scott Savory had no Mengoni teammates. KoM leader Stalin Quiterio, and second in the overall standings, had one teammate, but didn't need to worry about the lead changing, as the second-placed guy didn't show.

If I won both sprints, I'd probably move into third in the sprint standings, but that was going to be a tall order, so I kept that in my back pocket.

Generally, this should have been a good day for a long break. But the series dynamics were going to mess things up. On the second lap, all the jerseys got away in a five-rider move. Perfect. I countered from the field to get up there. It was a pretty hard effort. But they, particularly Stalin, didn't want to play, and we were reabsorbed. The field sat up. After a few more belated moves, a group got away. Dioslaki was happy to see it go, because it meant his sprint lead was safe. Durso was probably happy as well, because if there were ten up the road, his race lead was safe.

Savory, knowing this meant he couldn't win green tried attacking from the field. Dioslaki was hot on his wheel. After about 15 seconds, Savory, swerves, raises one arm in a kind of wave, and sits up. This was repeated a few more times. I'm not sure what Scott was expecting. If he wanted the jersey, he'd have to tow Dioslaki across adn then win the sprint. Guess he didn't want it enough.

After the second points sprint, and the group still away, think this was about six to go, I figured it was a good time for a counter. Got in a small move and we bridged across to the break, gobbling up something like 45 seconds in less than a lap. And seconds after we closed, the field was hot on us.

And everyone sat up.

With four to go and myself out of position, the winning move went. I was amazed people watched it go. A few attempts to bridge and the field gave up. Dioslaki was in it, Ricky Lowe was in it. Stalin was going to hope to win the series by putting enough places between himself and Durso.

Durso got his teammates on the front on the last lap. One rode away from the field! The other was going to help keep the speed up in the finale. I decided to go for the long sprint. I saw Dan Lim go right after the potholes. I tried to get on him. Didn't make it. I figured if I started a bit slower, I could go longer. I was wronger. Durso's teammate dragged the field up to my wheel. Still hadn't quite caught Dan and we had 500 meters to go. I probably should have tried going again and then blow up, but instead I pulled over. With wet roads and guys fighting for series points, I figured I didn't want to get caught in the middle.

not a happy day for me, but at least we scored great everywhere else.

A belated report from Saturday's L&C Cup 1-2-3 race at PP. I'd say about 80 guys in the field. I thought I was the only Kissena but Renee was there incognito as his Kissena kit was at the cleaners. I didn't know this until late in the race when he came up and spoke to me.

I followed an early attack on lap 4 containing Al Barouh, Matt Cuttler from Adler, me, and a Northeast Hardware guy. Everyone was motivated and working hard except the Northeast Hardware guy who wouldn't pull at all. We tried to drop him on the climb but he was good at wheelsucking. After about 1 lap we decided to sit up. It was too far to go with only 3 guys working and 1 passenger. It would have been hard enough with 4 guys. After a short while we were back in the field.

I went with 2 more break attempts that didn't work. One included the yellow and green jerseys. Although they were a target for anyone vying for those competitions, I was hopeful that the firepower would be too much for the field to catch, but I was wrong. Every move was brought back.

With 4 to go I was feeling lousy and I decided that I would wait for the field sprint regardless of who attacked. As luck would have it everyone else decided they would wait for the sprint also. I started to feel better but didn't have much left for the sprint. I had good position but the field was going too slow and was starting to swarm the front. One sketchy move on the narrow part of the downhill on the last lap caused a scare but no one went down, until a few seconds later when it reverberated through the field and I heard a crash behind me. Nothing to do but keep my focus ahead and prepare for the sprint. The field was spread across the road as the sprint started. If my legs were fresher I might have stood a chance but they were shot and I cramped badly before the line and had to coast across. My quads seized up as I crossed the finish line and I had to get off the bike to stretch and keep form spasming.

Renee went down in the crash but was ok. Gregg Lee had a cut above his eye but also seemed ok. Saw him getting medical attention from the ambulance as I did a lap after the race.

Disappointing result but I was satisfied with the way I raced. Glad to see some great results from Sunday and the overall. Congratulations.

Anyone interested: http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=13349 ??

For those who did Catskills, I checked the course profile, there's an ascent at 0.3 miles on each lap. It is 0.25 miles, approximately 5%. Probably don't need a compact, or a 28. I'm sure it's manageable on a double 23/25.

I'm away for the next few weekends, so won't be doing any local races for a bit. Hitting the Cape Cod Classic Criterium on the 21st if anyone is up that way.

Wish I could be there. But last Friday eve, while leaving Prospect, I had a nice run-in with a piece of plastic road furniture at the bottom of the hill. Was riding behind a friend who swerved at the last moment and I didn't see it coming. With friends like that, who needs enemies, right?
The road rash is no big deal. However, the concussion will keep me off the road bike until at the earliest some time next week. Glad I was wearing a helmet. And I hope to begin light indoor training tomorrow. Probably no hard workouts for another week.

@Adam --humor most appreciated! Ha!