Bearmouth was brought back last year, and is pretty much the only road race in the state. MSU does still put on theirs, and this year there was a UM crit the same weekend, but I didn't make it out in the open field for either. I do wish I'd gone to the road race, it looked like a great course out by Lewis and Clark caverns.
One thing I am starting to appreciate for road racing is a fully paved course with minimal traffic. At bearmouth, we basically have the roads to ourselves. The first out and back is a nice, rolling frontage road along the river and interstate from Drummond to Bearmouth, the second out and back goes over a pass to Helmville. No one has much of a reason to drive on those roads.
On to the race, there were about 25 in our open field. There's a long 1/2/3 race, and a short 4/5 race. But because of the difficulty of getting a road upgrade around here, an "open 4/5" category was added, which means anyone can race in the big race if they want. I managed to actually get myself a cat 3 upgrade last year but there are a number of really fast, experienced racers around who still are 4/5s on the road.
Things started out fast right from the start, I guess a few people missed the bit about there being a neutral roll out through town and past the interstate ramps. And from there it didn't let up. For the first 6-7 miles there were attacks going all over the place, and I may have been contributing slightly. The way things were going you definitely didn't want to be caught out at the back so doing some work and sticking up front seemed smarter, plus it's nice to get the legs warmed up with an effort or two. Plus we had a strong tailwind, so everyone else had to put in a pretty similar effort up that one short hill...
At one point I went and told Ivan to make sure he sticks on either Kevin or Andrew's wheel, and that was exactly when Kevin decided to go. There were 3-4 guys a little up the road, Andrew was right on Kevin, but I was a little off them, chasing, hoping Ivan is with me. It was probably the hardest effort for all of us in the whole race. I surfed a few dropped riders and made it. We wound up with 8- Kevin, Andrew, Charlie, me, Shaun and Owen from the cycling house, and two guys from WA I don't know. Shaun and Owen are the only two guys on the same team, and no Flathead or Sportsman Ski Haus riders made the break, which was surprising. They were pretty much left on their own to chase as most of us had teammates back there. We worked well together and got ourselves a good lead. Going back through the start finish, about 25mi in, we had a lead of something like 3:40. Then the climb.
This started out pretty civil. The wind was blowing super hard from the northeast (like 20mph sustained), so we were in a head/cross wind from the first turnaround point, over the pass, and to the 2nd turnaround. A long ass time of unpleasantness so sticking together over the climb seemed like a reasonable idea. For some reason, one of the WA guys kept attacking. Also for some reason, guys kept closing it down. I'm sitting on the back of Andrew, Kevin, and Charlie wondering why they don't let this dude go be in the wind by himself for awhile to rethink his decisions. It's 40mi to the finish, he's not getting there alone. The result of the attacks was losing Shaun, Owen, and the other WA guy. Thanks, now it's 5 of us in the wind instead of 8. But I guess you've got to slim that group down eventually. Side note, this guy appeared to be struggling earlier and i even made a dig to try and lose him from the group, but I guess was just pretending to skip turns. He did stop dicking around after that (well, until the climb) and suddenly could pull through like all the rest of us.
The way out to the turnaround is 12 mi, into the wind, but slightly downhill. The grade didn't really make a difference, it was shitty both ways. After the turnaround you have a tailwind, but that lessens the draft plus it's a gradual uphill. So what's even easier? I don't know. I guess the way back was faster and so shorter. Our average speed down to the turnaround was like 21 and then on the way back up almost 25. It seemed like 27+ most of the time but then things start to get a little steeper. As we neared the top, people are starting to not pull through, little surges are happening, we almost split up once or twice, but generally things are together and we're getting close. From the top it's a 5mi descent and 1 more mile to the finish line, all with a tailwind. Maybe 2k from the descent I take a pull, look back, and have like 30 yards on the group. Well, I guess I'm going, because a sprint with these guys is not going to work out in my favor. The gap keeps growing and i start to think I'll make it over. Unfortunately, Charlie, who had been talking about working together against Kevin and Andrew for the last two weeks, chases me back down, and as soon as he got close Kevin attacked. I have no chance of getting on, Charlie's reward for all his hard work is also getting dropped, so there we are, both alone off the back cresting the hill. I wasn't expecting to make it but getting dropped before the top of the hill wasn't my plan either. This pretty much removed any slight chance Charlie or I had.
Apparently Andrew attacked the descent and barely stayed on the road, but Kevin stuck with him and got a few second gap at the line. I guess it's nice I didn't have to try to stay ahead of the pack, or even with those guys down that because there are some tight corners and you get a tailwind. My top speed was 47 and I was a minute slower down it than Andrew and Kevin (Andrew's strava shows 52.8).
So I was annoyed at how that shook out but I did still win cat 3 by virtue of being the only one in the break, and they gave me a state champion medal for it. And I got some sunglasses. And there were burgers after and I took home a case of leftover beer. And I've got to thank Alex and Missoula Bicycle Works for supporting me and putting on a great race.
https://www.strava.com/activities/2381458485/overview
No comments:
Post a Comment