Sterling Classic Road Race Report

Cat 5 35+: 5th/34

I got in a little racing in conjunction with my 20th class reunion celebration at Lawrence Academy this past weekend. The fam and I headed to Groton, MA on Friday for a class dinner and stayed the weekend at a hotel in Devens (the former Fort Devens).
It was great to get back to see old classmates and teachers. But, as the saying goes: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It rained the day of our graduation back in 1986 and the ceremony had to be held in the gym. 20 years later, same result: RAIN!
Luckily Saturday morning (race day) held fairly intermittent showers, but it was below 50 degrees and the roads were very wet already, making it a fairly unmemorable experience overall. Ironically, I was talking with Andrew Freye the other day about his race experience at the NORBA National out West. His demise was the opposite kind of weather. Hot, sunny conditions were the theme for his day, not the type of riding environment he’d been accustomed to having trained in Maine all spring. For me, the weather was typical on Saturday, cold and wet!
I had a very limited warm-up due to my preference to stay dry as close to race time as possible. The course was an 8 mile roller and my group did 3 laps. We had a rolling neutral start up the finish-line hill then hit some rolling backroads that became very narrow at times and with the yellow line enforced, we could only feasibly go 3-wide.
I decided to not use eyewear sacrificing comfort for visibility. I’m not sure that was a good call as I quickly got sand in me eye and it was very difficult to stay on someone’s wheel as the spray came right up into my face.
After failing to ride strategically at my last road race, I was eager to go hard from the gun, but I also wanted to be smart this time. I rode at the front the entire race to make sure I went with anyone that went off the front. I tested the group on the second lap and put in a hard pull at the front, to assure myself I would at least get a workout in. the pack was pretty tight and it was evident I would not be able to go solo as there were no challenging climbs to accelerate on. On the final lap, a few of us took off and tried to organize a paceline to get away, but the pack kept us in check and we were too scattered. The final mile plus was on a 2 lane major road and we were able to use the right-hand lane plus the breakdown lane. I was mid-pack on the left side with some room to move up front quickly if I saw anything develop. However, I sensed this wasn’t the ideal position so I drifted until an opening emerged and made my way to the breakdown lane. Normally this wouldn’t make sense, but it turns out it was timely as a rider went down hard near where I was. Evidently he slid out into the opposite lane, good thing a car wasn’t coming!
So I rode the curb and sat behind a guy I’ve seen before and knew was good. The road bended slightly to the right then hard right uphill to the finish. A guy went off about 200 yards from the finish and it was chase time. I was about 7th at the foot of the hill but put the head down and went as hard as I could and picked off a couple for 5th. The hill certainly didn’t seem that long the other 2 laps!
I’m pleased with the result as I feel like I was patient, I learned more about strategy, and I got a decent workout in and placed well in a sprint. My first mountain bike race is next weekend. I haven’t even ridden my ProAxe yet so it should be interesting to say the least!
The Victory continues to become more and more an extension of me.