NC State RR Championships

This past weekend was the NC State RR championships and also my first racing in a little over 9 months with little training to speak of so far this year.

Saturday. Masters 30-39

Pete Cannell, Rich Malencio and Myself started this masters race with about 60 others. The race was pretty stacked with all of the strong "baby masters" present and seemingly fresh. We were in for 80 miles of pretty flat racing in 90 degree heat. From the gun Bruce Humpries, Hincapie/Coca-Cola, attacked. And I do mean from the gun. Of course none of us thought that would work so we let it roll. He was soon joined by Jay Charles. A case group soon formed of about 8 guys and the break had gained about 2 minutes. Slight panic at this point. We wanted to keep Pete fresh so Rich and I went to the front and tried to chase but the Hincapie guys were having none of it. We both attacked a few times to try and get things rolling but it just wasn't happening.

With about 25 miles to go Rich Harper rolled off the front with absolutely no protest from the field. This I could not believe, it was like no one wanted to race their bikes! I was at the back resting from my earlier efforts an couldn't do anything about it.

The rest of the day saw some of the most negative racing I have ever experienced and it was no fun at all. Last time through the feed zone some guy who had an obvious issue driving his bike just fell over in front of me????? I was gaped and didn't have the desire or fitness to latch back onto the field. I did a cool down lap and then hung it up. Peter ended up about 10th in the field sprint. Harper won.

It was one of the worst days I have had on the bike in a long time and honestly was not very fun.

Sunday Elite 1/2/3 race

The next day we had to do it all over again in the 1/2/3 race. This would prove to be a completely different day even though many of the same guys would be racing, just add a few of the youngster's and some of the older masters. We had 9 guys and were well represented with some pretty good firepower including Pete Cannell (National Champ), Mark Jellous, Jay Cox, Brad Messenger and Myself. We started with 80 riders. The race started out ridiculously fast and for the first 13 mile lap we averaged 30MPH! For the entire race we averaged 27.2 MPH covering the 80 mile course in under 3 hours!

We had a pretty laid back plan, race smart and try to get in every move. The first move to go was awesome on paper Chris Harkey (Hincapie/Coca-Cola), Ryan Jenkins (Carolina Masters), our own Pete Cannell and an Industry Nine rider. This was a pretty strong group of guys and we were more than happy with 1 out of 4, especially considering it was Pete. The break established itself at around a minute and we debated considerably how to handle the field. It was decided that with that many guys still fresh and all of the teams that missed the move, we would not be able to do much to interrupt the chase other than making enemies and possibly causing a crash, so we sat in and waited for the catch/counter and watched for any free rides up to the break. The 4 were off the front for about 28 miles before slowly being reeled in after a hard fight.

The flurry of counter attacks was nuts but nothing really stuck immediately. Jay was doing a really smart thing my marking Terry Huss who we knew would be a big threat. Terry hit it with 3 laps to go and Jay was right there, instant gap. After only about 10 minutes a strong chase group of 10 formed and we put two into that group Mark and Brad. They quickly bridged and it was a strong group of 12 off the front with all of the strong teams represented. It was keep the field in check time for the rest of the day and Brad M, Pete and Myself all rode at the front keeping it together. The only puzzling thing of the day was Hincapie/Coke chasing even though they had a guy in the break, I guess they were not happy with the odds. We were able to keep sticking our nose in there and they could not get an organized chase going. My job was done and I faded back in the field to cruise it in. Pete hung in near the front and did an awesome job winning the field sprint. Unfortunately the blistering pace of the break had taken its toll and our guys were not able to get the win. We finished 9th, 10th, 11th in the break and Peter was 13th with the field sprint. On a positive note we raced really well as a team and were well represented and respected as a powerful team.

It was much nicer on Sunday to be in a good fast positive bike race rather than the surging negative mess from Sunday. I look forward to a successful last half to the season for MOB Cycling.

This week is the Asheville Speedway race on Wednesday and the Asheville TT on Thursday which I will do on the road bike and use it as a good field test.