Last Saturday I headed up to Ipswich for the Weeping Willow.
That’s right, a Saturday race. Usually Sat. races in the spring or fall are out
for me due to kids soccer, but this was Willowdale. Exceptions would have to be made and rides for my daughter would have to be found.
It turned out a couple other locals, John Beaupre & Karen Potter thought
Willowdale was the place to be so we connected at the park & ride and
headed up together in John’s truck.
I was a little
worried about what the day had in store for us when I got woken up at 4:00 to pouring rain, but the skies seemed to be
clearing during the ride up. When we got there around 11:00 it seemed like they hadn’t
gotten the early morning rain that we had back in Upton. We noticed while we
were registering that the people finishing up the Novice/Sport race looked pretty
clean. Maybe today wasn't going to be a mess.
By the time we got our numbers, anyone that was doing two laps
in the sport race was already out on their 2nd lap to we took the
opportunity to check out the first few miles of the course and see what conditions
were like. Perfect is what I would call them. As long as you didn’t take some
of the questionable line selection that had been burned in (and washed out)
during the morning race, the trails were like velcro. My legs, on the other
hand, felt kind of dead during the warm-up, especially on any sort of incline.
As counter intuitive as this may sound, this is usually a good sign for me. If
my legs feel super fresh, they often vanish halfway through the race. If they feel a little bit heavy. More often than not it's going to be a good day. I’m sure
it’s all in my head, but that’s how I seem to remember it. We rode maybe the
first 3 miles of the course before heading back to catch the racer meeting and
staging.
The first mile of the loop is a fast, double track, pace lining
affair. There’s immediate hole shot to battle for. Things are pretty strung out by the time you make the turn into the single track. That said, with 26 registered
in our group, you didn’t want to be too far off the leaders when you hit the trail.. I was front row on the far left with just Aaron Millet
outside of me at the start line. The start seemed more peaceful than years
past. I traded a few spots here and there but the pace didn’t seem quite on the
edge as years past. I took this as a positive sign as I felt unusually
comfortable hanging with the lead group. I was on the tail end of a group of 7
going into the single track with Michael McKittrick and Anders Larson ahead of
me. Geoff McIntosh was at the front pushing the pace and about halfway through
the first stretch Geoff, Aaron Millet, and two guys I didn’t know had started
to build a gap. I knew we were going to be on a short stretch of double track
soon so there was no need to freak out at this point. When we hit it I managed
to get by Michael, Anders and one of the guys I didn’t know, but wasn’t able to
completely close down the gap to Aaron and unknown rider #2 in the orange kit.
Geoff had a little gap on the two of them and I proceeded to dangle about 5 seconds back
through the next stretches of single track. By the time we hit the next long
cart road section the lead group had come back together. Try as I might I just
couldn’t close down the gap they had on me. I probably could have gotten by on just the Skratch
I had in my bottles but old habits die hard and I decided to have a quick bite
along this stretch. I spent a little too
long fumbling with the wrapper and lost all contact with the lead group as a result.
The funny thing about this course is that even with some of
the longish straightaways, you’re going so fast on them that there are really
only a handful of spots on the course where you can see more than 5 seconds or
so ahead or behind you. One of those sections is the slightly uphill stretch
by the field coming through the start/finish area. It was at this point I
spotted Geoff some 50yds. ahead of me. Maybe it was the potato I ate on lap one
or maybe I just had legs today but I quickly started closing the gap to 3rd
place. I saw Geoff take a couple peeks back, so he knew I was coming. It reminded of a couple years ago at the Big Ring Rumpus when Geoff,
after losing contact with Alby and Doug on the final lap, sat up and waited for
me, rode my wheel for the last couple miles and took me at the finish. Even
though there was a full lap of racing left I was determined not to let that happen
again. I tried to make the most convincing pass I could but I knew Geoff had
latched on and was right behind me. It was time for plan B, reckless
abandonment. I railed the turn into single track, carried the momentum up the
quick little hill and with the help of a miss-shift by Geoff, quickly put a
little gap into him. I proceeded to ride the twisty, turny, roller coaster
stretch of trail right on the edge of my abilities, perhaps even beyond them, and had built the gap to
maybe 5 or 10 seconds half way through. This is also another section of trail
where you get a chance to see the guys that are ahead of you. I saw Aaron and
the guy in orange a couple times where the trail loops back on itself. I’d
guess the gap was in the 20 – 30 second range. Big enough that it’d be hard to close
down against strong riders but close enough that if someone made a mistake it
would vanish quickly. Aaron was the first to falter flatting somewhere in the
middle of the lap. He did let me know I wasn’t too far off of first when I came
through. Unfortunately, I didn’t know who I was chasing. I just remembered he
had orange on, but that's it.
I felt surprisingly strong the entire 2nd lap with
the exception of the one climb where I felt completely gassed. I guess I know
what I need to work on. By the time I hit the top I figured any chance of
chasing down 1st was gone. Still with maybe a couple miles left
there was no reason not to kick it in since you never know what can happen.
After the hill and subsequent descent there’s a short section of cart road
followed by a section of single track before hitting the final half mile of
cart road to the finish. Just as I was going into that final section of trail I
caught up to a guy with orange on his kit and an orange helmet. I honestly
didn’t think he was my target since I came up on him way too quickly. It seemed
like every other pass it was taking me forever to catch up to and get by people. I was on this guy and by him in a heartbeat. He was incredibly cordial
about the pass too. There’s no way this was the guy I was chasing. It wasn’t
until I was almost out of earshot when I heard him yelling up to me asking my
age group that I had the idea I might actually be leading. With just over a ½
mile to go I wasn’t slowing down to compare notes and just hammered it home to
the finish. Sure enough, just seconds after crossing the line the mechanical
voice informed me that I had won my age group. A few seconds later the man in
orange, Kurt Perham, came across. Yup, that’s who I’d
been chasing. It turns out after Aaron had flatted, he kind of went into cruise
control thinking there was no-one that close behind him. Whoops. I bet he
doesn’t do that again. Between Aaron flatting and Kurt's mental lapse I can't say I entirely feel like I earned the W (my first in an Expert race BTW). I guess being consistent pays off some times. I have made a few changes to the bike since last year: Magura TS8 fork (I was full rigid most of last year), Vredestein tires and a wider bar. Maybe I've just finally learned how to ride a bike, but it's handling like a dream right now.
Beaupre came through a short while later taking the win
in the Masters group. He had spent the entire race dueling Bob Bisson and was
able to finally get some separation in the last bit of single track and posted
the 2nd fastest time for the entire Expert field. Fast Old Guys
indeed. I looked around for Potter to see how she had finished up
but it turned out they had made a start line decision to do 3 laps so she was
still out on course. In the end a midrace crash by Karen allowed Crystal
Anthony to get a gap that Karen wasn’t able to close down. Despite the fact
that her 2nd place was bringing down the overall average of our
vehicle, she still got to ride in the front seat on the way home.
The men's Elite race came down to a three way sprint between Pete Ostroski, Billy Melone and Brian Wilichoski with Melone taking the W.
Full results for the race are here. Dirtwire.tv covered the race and there are great photo galleries on the Riverside Racing facebook page. If you haven't "liked" them yet, you should.
Although I would have liked to have raced more than
1:20 (seriously, make it longer next
year) this is still one of my favorite races. The single track is just so much
fun and the race organization is top notch. Thanks to Riverside Cycles, Arron,
Capt’n Dennis, and everyone else involved in putting this race on. For me, this is a can't miss race. Just don't keep doing them on Saturdays ;)
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