At his request, one rider's name has been changed.
I showed up with a bit of trepidation knowing that Paul Mach was registered. This race is all about making it over the Leesville gap climb in the front group and I was afraid that Mach would destroy the group and I’d get left for dead. Also along for the fun was Rider P, and Kirk Carlsen (Garmin), Willy and a bunch of Marcpro Strava, Yahoo and Metro Mint guys. As we left town a break formed with Mike Taylor of Yahoo, Kirk and a few others. Mach was pretty aggressive and made some attacks, but nothing stuck. We hit the rough roads around 1:00 behind the break. It was pretty fast on the rough roads and after a while, Mach flatted. I felt bad for him, but also relieved. :-)
Leading up to the climb, I tried to get Willy’s attention to get him up to the front, but I think he had already flatted by then. He had been riding well near the front previously. I hit the climb in 4th place behind Rider P, Jesse Miller Smith (Strava) and a Yahoo (Wingert or Switters?). The Yahoo immediately opened a gap so I went around him and that was it. Nobody else made the split, even for a little bit. We had been going fairly hard, but I still found that odd. The climb was pretty freaking hard. It ended up being 368W for almost 17 minutes and that was with asking them to ease up a bit two times. We caught and dropped all of the break except for Carlsen who was still about 30 seconds ahead and Taylor who we caught basically at the top. We worked well together and caught Carlsen pretty quickly.
I had forgotten just how rough the road is even after the climb. This race really is tougher than Copperopolis as far as rough roads go I think.
Through the valley, I thought that my chances were pretty good. I’ve done this race enough that I have a pretty good sense of what to do tactically and I looked around and saw that I was the only one with aero wheels. I figured that every pull I’d be saving just a bit of energy and I hoped that it would even things up by the end. That all went to hell when Mach came back up near the end of the upper valley, along with about 7 or 8 others. He had FIXED his flat and chased back with this group! Pretty impressive.
On the climb out of the valley, Jesse accelerated and Mach followed. I tried to jump across towards the top, but left it too late, though I think we lost a few guys on that short climb. Towards the bottom of the descent Jesse stopped with some kind of mechanical issue. We decided to let Paul burn out there and finally caught him just about as we made the right turn down in the flats to head back north.
There were a number of attacks and counters over the next few miles. I made a few good counters and got away alone twice, but only for a minute or two each time. As we got towards the final left turn with around 5km to go Rider P and Carlsen opened up a small gap. They hung out there close for a while and I was sure I could jump across the gap, but the catch would be to get away clean. I waited for the right time, but waited too long as when the right time came the gap had opened up was too big so I stayed put. With about a km to go I stayed on the back and followed Mike Taylor. At the front, Jim Wingert opened up a small gap while the rest of us hesitated. Finally Cavanaugh opened up the sprint. When Taylor jumped I followed him. He didn’t quite pass Wingert and I threw my bike, but didn’t quite make it. Taylor was probably a half of a bike behind Wingert and I was close enough to wonder if I got Taylor, but I didn’t. In front Carlsen was cramping and conceded and that is when Rider P drilled it and opened up the gap.
Afterwards, everybody said that they were cracked. My calves had been “talking to me” and threatening to cramp towards the end and everybody else was in the same boat or worse. It’s amazing that such a short race can do so much damage to the riders. My arms are still sore…
1. Rider P
2. Kirk Carlsen (Garmin)
3. Jim Wingert (Yahoo!)
4. Mike Taylor (Yahoo!)
5. Kevin Metcalfe (Team Specialized Racing Masters)
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