Purgatory Road Race 2012

Here is a debrief I wrote to an email group regarding the Purgatory Road Race in Sutton, MA on 6/10. I need a filler report before I delve into my write-up for the Tour of Washington County Stage Race (and Friday's Kick-Off Criterium).

Purgatory Cat 3 Race Report: A lesson on how not to race bikes (unless you are working for a teammate in the peloton. But even then, such racing is highly discouraged haha).

We were also set for a good 5 laps at 11 miles each, totaling ~4500ft gain. The course has a seemingly MASSIVE elevation loss and a noticeable, but not nearly as massive gain. (Hank et al, correct me if this seems incorrect). After the neutral start 12 riders got away, no one cared to ride faster than 20mph. The first thing Joe, myself, and a few friends of mine (who were planning an attack after the climb on lap 3 of 5) heard was 1:30 gap with 12 riders in the break. I had no idea this even happened because I - for the first time in my racing career - took the advice of many to stay away from the front as I tend to work myself for no reason.

The gap got to 2:25 (I think) and I was sick of the field making no effort. I slipped off the front when taking a pull and no one did anything, mini effort and I had 50m. I stuck my head down and rode hard. Quickly I had 30s on the field and half a lap later as the legs were getting quite heavy I was within 60sec (!!!) of the break. Sadly I was not fresh due to the Nutmeg races the day before, or I would have laid it all on the line in effort to make it onto the climb and go to war on that 1K hill to latch onto the break. However, the pack swallowed me up, but we were now withing 80sec of the break - which was slowly falling apart. Very few wanted to work aside from myself and sir Joe Lynch. We knew a couple things: 1) if we sat it wasn't going to come back and our best placement possible would be 8, even with the falling apart breakaway and 2) we didn't come this far to sit around with a pack of individuals satisfied with a poor placing.

Joe and I made attacks and drilled the field for the remaining two laps, each of us gapping the field on multiple occasions. The efforts Joe put in were (as expected) massive and unforgiving. At one point on the backside of the course where there was the 250m 3% climb, I thought I popped - I started to get the chills/goosebumps/cramps - and told Joe and another fellow whom we were off the front with that I had officially imploded. I slowed to something shy of 5mph and the field was on me before I could relax. I barely latched on and somehow recovered to continue to assault with Joe.

Now we were within 60 sec once again after falling back to 90+ sec on the third lap. It was clear we were devouring the pavement between ourselves and the breakaway because while taking a pull on a long straight I saw SRAM Neutral Support. 1K later, it was pulled into a driveway. As Bob Roll would say, "The referees have declared that the breakaway will be caught, the team cars are being stopped along the road." I must note that during the last feedzone a gutsy individual took it upon himself to win. He broke away from the breakaway and won cleanly.

We passed the SRAM car and it was on to the final climb. Taking the right-hander to the 1K climb, Joe was fully exploded and I was rendered something just shy of dead. We eased up the rest of the climb and called it a day.

Final result: the breakaway (except for the valiant lone ranger who went solo) did not survive and nor did we. The friends I had in the field and was hoping I would help did not have sufficient legs to place or collect money. Joe displayed his classic capacity to endure and endure, especially on a course that wasn't quite his forte. Although, when you can dig deep like Joe every course is your course. I made an effort to do (what I feel is) one of the most amazing feats in cycling, bridge the gap to a break. However, I could not sustain the effort and am a bit stronger because of it.

Hollenbeck's Spring Classic RR

This was what I call going into a race at 80%. I knew I was going to be pretty sore and tired coming out of the Duathlon from the day before, but my hopes were still high. I wanted to race to the best of my ability on that day, regardless of how I was feeling going into it. I was only able to really fall asleep at 12:30, despite going into bed at 11:15, and woke up just after 6:00AM to get things set and prep to leave at 7:15 for the 2+ hour drive to Virgil, NY. We got to Virgil a bit before 9:30, much time to spare before the 10:15 start time. We got our numbers and had some time to spare. I did a really brief warm up to check out the uphill finish. About halfway up my legs felt shot so I rode down and did some light spinning on flats.

There's the course. Some decent hills, with one real kicker just after a long slight hill up to mile 16, and a legitimate uphill finish.

The Race: Like most other races, this one went out real easy. The first thing I noticed was a large contingency of Ommegeng/Syracuse Bicycle members who were holding out the front line. I sat in as best I could without losing too much contact with the front of the pack because it was clear they were going to make moves. As we hit a very quick uphill the leaders tested the pack a little by picking it up swiftly. It didn't drop anyone besides those were were noticeably unprepared for racing. Next we hit a decent climb at 5.5 miles in, this one was much more serious as it was the first real effort of the race. Normally, I'd come out of the hill up at the front and comfortable, but about halfway through I was already looking to where the peak was. I made it up the first hill, and knew it wasn't going to get any better - the feeling I had when I went up the finish hill warming up. So I made sure to conserve as best as I could. The next set up was a slight uphill, with a quick downhill recovery, then a steeper and longer hill (miles 6-10.5). Coming up the first part, the leaders started pushing pretty solidly - as would be expected. There were less than ten guys who got a bit of a gap at this point, 2 were slightly off the lead pack by 15-20m and the rest of us were around 30m back. Kevin and I were at the front of this group. We saw that another hill was upcoming and knew we had to get back before it if we wanted to be in the race - because they were not going to let up at all on the second hill. I was feeling pretty fried working these hills, which was a major letdown as I was excited to be in a race with a team who was working it pretty good and I wanted to be in it to step it up - but the duathlon beat me up pretty good. Kevin made the push to reattached and I figured I'd might as well go with. Once we caught the two who were 15m or so back, Kevin started to slow up and had it not been a teammate I would have stayed tucked in. Without receiving a signal I jumped in front of him and pulled with what I had at that time to reattach. Luckily my efforts did not go in vain. After the race Kevin told me had I not jumped in for that pull he didn't think he would have been able to reattach and maintain.

That pull made me taste the red zone a little, not something I've ever had until about 1 mile to go in a bike race. I knew had I kept crushing myself I would've blown up. The next climb was immediately after my pull and once we hit it, I was struggling. I worked to not lose too much contact, and there were more than 5 of us who got dropped back. At the pretty consistent downhill we worked to make contact - and got damn close: about 3 seconds (45m) coming out of a turn. Only two of us (myself and a CNYC guy) had put in significant work, and we could've gotten back in it had 2-3 of the other guys made the effort. We started to drift and lost the leaders. I continued to keep the tempo up and didn't realize I dropped the others, so I sat up and waited so I could conserve. The group eventually grew to 12 (I only thought it was 6 during the race but I just checked the results: http://flcycling.org/?page_id=2101). But I took a few pulls, and the CNYC guy did nearly all the work. We took it somewhat comfortably, but I was pretty tired and just wanted to have enough gas to move up the finish hill. Things were pretty uninterested here on out - besides that kicker I mentioned at 16...not fun. We came into the turn towards the finish and cruised into the hill. The CNYC guy jumped and I let him go: not only did he deserve it, but I didn't know how little I had in the tank and didn't want to blow up halfway up the hill. The next guy went - from SU (Cat4) - and I stuck somewhat close to him, less than a meter off his back wheel. The hill kicked up but I still had no idea where the finish was, then, when I finally saw it, the line was 20m away. I started to reel him in and with about 10m to go, put in a hard effort to (with a high guarantee) nip him at the line - I was too sore to try to bury anyone. I got him by less than half a wheel length to secure 12th place (2nd in the chase group), but knew I had it for sure

I was glad to be done. Kevin ended up 3rd, which is excellent considering it was in a 4/5 race. I'm glad I had a hand in getting him back up to that lead pack, it was pretty rewarding knowing that even though my race was quite lackluster, I helped a teammate get to a good finish. I hadn't experienced this before (I tried to make some moves with Jensen at the PSU Crit, but we weren't organized enough). I'm really looking forward to the absolutely massive UR contingent @ Bristol this coming Saturday! Currently 11 of 18 confirmed riders are with UR!