Wilkesville to Wilkesville

Starting off.. I have to give huge credit to Larry!! He did exceptional work during this race. He did as much as he could when I asked him for some efforts.. I appreciate that very much.

1st Lap: Everyone on the team sat in and chilled.. The team kept the race together.

2nd Lap: Savage Hill became more visible on the front. Beaner and jordan did a great job in keeping the tempo high during the first part of the lap.(later did I find out that Beaner dropped a chain and went off the back). Then in the big rollers of the second lap Savage began to awake with attacks off the front to test out the Peloton. Will and Jordan did some attacks but none of them were able to stick and the Peloton look as if it was going to crack several times in the rollers.

3rd lap: Larry did a very good solo move to keep the tempo high through the feed zone, which continued to sap the energy of the Peloton.

Savage Hill had 4 guys left in a 25 man strong Peloton. I kept trying to prod the team to keep the tempo high going into the hill. But, I could see they were tired and had enough. Larry did some efforts but the others were slowly being fried.

On the long Climb (Hawk Station): Will set tempo at the front and I sat second wheel behind him waiting to launch my attack. With about 1/4 of the climb done I launched off his wheel up the hill away from the Peloton. This became the decisive move with one guy marking me and 4 riders bridging up at the top of the climb. The Peloton was shattered behind us up the climb.

The breakaway worked a little over the top the climb but mostly was disorganized work with no true leader in the group. It seemed most of the guys in the break were really suffering and were trying to save their legs. Different riders drove the break hard for no apparent reason.

The break took the left turn onto (123) and rode medium tempo on the flat section. With the break being disorganized, guys continued to catch back on the group. The break grew from 6 to 10. With myself as the only Savage Hill Rider in the front group. I took the initative with about 4 miles to go and attacked the break on a long uphill drag to see who still had fresh legs. The break responded a little but it seemed the break was still disorganized and my time went up to about 30-45 seconds with 1 mile to go. I soloed away from the Break and WON a race that has eluded me for 7 years.

Was Wilkesville a road race or a time trial?


Based on the women's race, I'm not sure. The race started great as I broke
away on a hill with the "lead pack." We pushed the pace to drop the back group, which included the Dayton Cycle, Tri Tech and some others teams. Even I
attacked, further pushing the pace to increase the gap on the back group.

Unfortunately when we hit "The Wall," mechanical problems hit me. For the rest of the race my chain/cogs skipped on hills making it tough to catch the five girls ahead of me.


The last 30 miles was a solo effort...working my hardest to stay ahead of
the others whom we had dropped. Fearing every minute that those girls, who
likely were working together, would catch me. Periodically I would look
back to see if they were gaining but fortunately they never came into sight.


Finally, I crossed the finish line, exhausted but ecstatic to have successfully warded off those other racers...only to see those girls whom I had feared would catch me had dropped out, changed clothes and were waiting at the finish line for the guys.

Why does it seem the women's races are never as exciting as the men's?

I decided to do the cat 2-3 race this weekend so that Ryan could have some extra help, and because Rob and Will seemed to have all the help they needed in the 3-4s. The start was fairly civil as everyone was wary of the 69 miles that we had ahead of us. About 10 miles into the race things started to get interesting. First off, Nate Ziccardi flatted. Then a few minutes later, people started jumping a little, and Ryan went to the front to play around.
Jon(I think that's his first name) Carr was on the front, and as Ryan came up alongside, Jon looked over his shoulder and moved into Ryan. Jon’s carbon rimmed front wheel hit Ryan’s derailleur and exploded. Jon went over the bars and hit hard. Ryan decided that his derailleur hanger was bent bad enough, so he went back to the wheel truck, and Pomo skidded so hard to avoid the crash that he wore right through the rubber of his tubies and flatted. So within a few minutes four of the main contenders (including our team leader) were out of the race.

Towards the beginning of the race Tym Tyler and a Bio Wheels rider broke away, and the pack let them roll. Later on after the crash Grimm and Mike House took off after them. The pack didn’t let them get out of sight, and after the junction was made, Mike took off solo. On the freeway section, Mike had a good gap, and I decided to roll off the front to keep the chase hot. Tris Hopkins of Torelli bridged up to me and we went to work. The pack stayed close for a while, and then they shut off the chase. Tris and I eventually weren’t able to keep the same pace as Mike, so we lost sight of him. Once we got to the start of the last 15 mile loop, I figured that we had a chance of staying away until the finish.

About that time we caught sight of Mike again, but I still didn’t think that we would catch him by the finish. Tris and I kept on working steadily. By the bottom of the big climb, Mike wasn’t that far ahead, and at the top he was only about 15 seconds in front. We caught him on the descent. Mike immediately pulled over and let us got to the front, and then refused to pull through. We all knew that he was too strong to sit in this late in the race, and Tris and I told him that, but Mike still refused to work. After about ten minutes of Tris and me trading pulls, Tris cramped on one of the rollers and Mike decided that now would be a good time to attack. Any respect I had for the guy was out the window by then. Tris caught back up to me a little later, and told me that there was a group about 15 seconds back. They caught us just as we caught Mike at the top of the very last roller, less than one mile before the finish. Amazingly Tris found strength from somewhere and contested the sprint, but I was finished and came in at the back of the pack in 8th. So close to at least a 3rd place finish. If Mike had worked with us the last few miles instead of launching a futile attack, we would have stayed away for sure.

It's not too often that a race plans comes together so well. But Savage Hill pulled off a perfect execution for a win in the 3/4 field at Wilkesville. The plan was to lay low for the first loop, tear up the field in the second loop and then, if I wasn't in a break, keep the pressure on and launch Rob for the win on the big climb.

Everyone pitched in with the attacks on the second loop. But it was Larry that really stepped up. By my count, Larry put in more attacks than the rest of the team combined. By the middle of the 2nd loop I started my attacks, trying to get a break going. Nothing was getting away. But each time I was caught, Larry would quickly follow with a counter attack (sometimes more than one) and keep the field on its toes until I could recover for another go. It was a tag-team effort that really began to take its toll on the field. Meanwhile, Rob was sitting patiently, biding his time until the third loop.

On the third loop, I had one or two more goes at a break and then began to prepare for the big climb. At the bottom of the climb, Rob got onto my wheel. I paced him up the left side to the front and then set a tempo up the first third of the climb. After a sharp right bend, I hear Rob switch into his big ring and BANG - he's gone. The resulting acceleration shattered the field. There were people stretched out as far ahead and as far behind as I could see.

In the run to the finish, two groups congealed. Rob was in the front group of 10 and I was sitting in a chase group of 5 with Jordan and Larry watching the action unfold up the road. With 4 miles to go, Rob attacked his group. Having (relatively) fresh legs, he easily rode off the front of his group and soloed in for the win.

It was fun. Rob won a hat.

Bottom line… unlike Larry, it was not fun for the second year in a row. I even questioned why I showed up to race. But on second thought, Rob won! This is a huge victory for Rob and Savage Hill. There were many great efforts by all SH riders today impacting the final outcome of the race. We had a race plan today and it was executed to perfection. I was impressed by Larry who rode a tremendous race and all SH riders for attacking and chasing repeatedly. By the 50th mile I could see the effect that the SH attacks were having on others who earlier were chasing breaks and were now condemned to the back of the pack, like myself, struggling to finish. Today, we grew as a team and thus individually. Thanks Jomay and Amy for the support.