April 29th 2006 by John Wyant
Sunny yet Cool Saturday 9AM about 45 degrees and rising, arm warmers and vest were in check, women and Jr.'s started earlier today to avoid the problems we had last week.
The cat. 5 field was 45 riders strong, a small group of the Allied Decals riders assembled earlier at the registration tent to come up with a better plan for this week, as last week, our guys and myself wasted a huge amount of energy pulling and breaking away left and right only to leave ourselves beat by the end of the race, however this week we planned to race a little smarter. Rather than taking monster pulls and break aways.
I was surprised that several of our guys offered to sacrifice themselves to create gaps in which chase groups would wear themselves out. I kept a careful eye on Derrin from Stark Velo, he's a newer member of Stark Velo's team, he won last week's race. He went out front about the half through today's race and I figured he was going to break away again. He is a strong rider but with close to a 24 MPH average for the Cat. 5 race, I figured he went out too early. There were several strong riders who would pull and create a gap and the pace line would reel them in.
The last lap was a little confusing as I crested the hill/grade, I knew people would take off to be the first down the hill. Jamie McKinney from Lakeside Bicycles was riding strong and took off going close to 40mph. I figured he would be spent before we got to the turn, so I sat on with a couple other guys from PDQ and a guy with a Carmichael jersey, we passed Jamie before the 90 degree left and it was teammate Jamie Ingalls in front, I jumped on his wheel and as we took the 90 degree turn, I was going full speed and didn't want to hit the brakes so I cut the turn sharp going close to 30mph and I cut off Jamie, I figured he was going wide and I tapped his bars, Sorry Jamie, I really wanted to keep the pace up.
Here's the worst part, I really thought we had another lap to go so I sat on a wheel and coasted through the finish, It wasn't until I looked around and seen everyone start to sit up, and I realized that the race is over, boy did I feel dumb. I felt good and could have sprinted but due to stupidity, I even let guys pass me before the line. Without even trying I think I ended up with somewhere in the top 10 and would have been top 3-4 or better If I would have realized it was the last lap.
I joined Summit Freewheelers about 3 weeks ago and this is my 2nd race with the guys. What a great team, everyone is very friendly and will gladly sacrifice themselves for the team. I knew I was with great team when team mate Dick Wiley, (whom I just met during the race) rides up next to me on next to the last lap and asks me "what can I do?" I told Dick,"Tire them out" at that point we were in the top 5 or 10, immediately he went to the front and took off down the hill. I couldn't believe it, a bunch of guys went chasing, he was caught by the time we rounded the 90 turn, HOWEVER we ended up passing all those guys the last lap, Nice Job Dick! What a great team to be a part of!