After getting split from the main field in the crosswinds at the Philly Phlyer, I was down in the dumps. I finished the race, but off the back. I felt like I’d forgotten how to keep a wheel in front of me, and when I rode the Drives the following Tuesday, my fears were compounded when I kept letting gaps open in front of me and was having a tough time closing them back up.
I had a long, easy ride to NYC on my calendar for the weekend, but with Battenkill looming a mere 2.5 weeks away, I felt like I wanted to get some more racing in my legs.
I saw the Union Grove 2/3 race on BikeReg, and asked if anyone else wanted to get some racing in over the weekend. Willem signed up before I had even made up my mind to race and then Gerald was enlisted after some gentle arm-twisting.
For some reason, the idea of doing a 2/3 race terrified me. As a recently upgraded 3, I had cut my teeth on 4/5 and 4 races, doing only the occasional 3/4. Doing an elite race conjured up images of Dominique Rollin lapping the 1/2/3 field at Greentree in 2008 without breaking a sweat, or the Rite Aid boys dropping the hammer from the whistle at Lower Providence that same year, shedding 75% of the field in the first three laps.
The race was going to be 11 laps of a 4.6-mile circuit. We didn’t really talk strategy on the drive out to Amish country, we talked survival. We figured that we’d hang for as long as we could, and would consider it a success if we were still in the main field with 5 laps to go.
We got to the race, and there were two French-Canadian riders with international licenses signing in ahead of us. Their licenses said Cat 1 and their tan lies said that they had probably been doing a lot of training/racing someplace other than Montreal. They told the promoters that they were Cat 2 in the U.S. Willem shot me a knowing glance…we were outclassed. Totally fucked. We’d be lucky to make it through the first lap without getting spit out the back.
We lined up and tried to keep things light, chatting with a few friendlies from TriStateVelo about cross and drinking (Team BT’s two favorite subjects.) Looking around, lining up for a 2/3 race was a lot different than a lower category race. Now I know that looks can be deceiving on the starting line of an amateur bike race, but our starting group was a goober-free zone. There wasn’t a helmet mirror or hairy leg in sight. We took our position where we thought we belonged…towards the back.
The starting whistle blew and off we went. Of course it took me two tries to get clipped in. I looked up, expecting to see the field a half-mile down the road already. Nope, they were still there and I caught right on.
A funny thing happened as we started the second lap. I felt good. I was riding well and I felt comfortable within the group. The speed was high, but the race was smooth. It was a lot different than even the 3/4 races I’d done…everybody seemed comfortable riding really close to each other, nobody slammed their brakes going into turns and there was a lot less of the hot-headed in-race verbal instruction that is all too common in the lower categories.
The course was pretty fast…only a few corners and a few power climbs. Nothing really hard enough to cause a big selection, but enough technical sections to keep it from being a straight-up drag race. There were a couple of straightaways through wide-open farmland where positioning within the pack was key to avoid crosswinds.
As the race went on, I felt more and more comfortable and even moved up and spent some time up at the front. Gerald never met a break he didn’t want to try to get in, so he tried his hardest to get away, to no avail. As the “Laps to Go” sign ticked down, I kept waiting for someone to drop the hammer and outclass us and out us as the soft posers that we came into the race feeling like we were.
It never happened. I kept feeling better and better and started feeling more like I was racing than just trying to hang on.
I wish that I could conclude this report by saying that Willem and I formed a leadout train for Gerald on the last lap, putting him in perfect position for a sprint victory.
Unfortunately, this isn’t that kind of story.
A couple of guys stayed off the front to win. Another small group chasing those guys got in a few seconds before the main pack.
However, we all finished with the main pack. Gerald rolled in first at 17th, I wasn’t far behind at 35th and Willem ended up 54th after getting caught behind a guy who broke his chain.
If you are a numbers person, it was a pretty unimpressive result for Team BT. Nobody in the money, and aside from a few of Gerald’s attacks, we didn’t really animate the race or try to play all of our cards.
However, considering the fact that we were hoping to simply survive half the race, we considered it a wild success, and we celebrated immediately afterward in true Team BT fashion with some cold Lion’s Head Lights and peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches.
We do this for fun, and any time you finish the race with the rubber side up in a better position than you thought possible, it’s time to celebrate.
Now on to Battenkill!
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