Aug 19 - Dunnigan Hills Road Race
Race info

Results

Reports: Cal Giant Cycling Team blog entry,  35+ 4/5 report by Eric Peterson, prior race

35+ 4/5 report by Eric Peterson

This was a definite bad news, good news race.

The good news was that there were a whopping 150 riders for the Masters 4/5 race which meant that they split us into three separate races.

Bad news, they accidentally gave my number to a different Eric (Hoffman) and since they didn't know at the time who got my number, they gave me a new number and shoved me into the 3rd race which only had 28 riders. I was supposed to be in the 2nd race which had 60 riders.

The race was very eventful in terms of break attempts, but the peleton covered everything very quickly. On my first attempt I was joined by two others, but we were out just 1 minute before the big group rolled back up to us. I immediately counter attacked and got out 30 yards, but they just marked me there to let me suffer so I soft pedaled until the caught me. Another time near the end I saw that two guys were getting ready, so I quickly got on their wheel. But another guy in an attempt to join us didn't act with enough sprint and ended up just dragging the whole group up to us.

Good news - I felt really good the whole time. Spent time up front, off the front, in the middle, at the back, and even off the back (one guy got dropped in some rolling hills and as he fought to rejoin, I slowed down to have him catch me. But as I sped up to bring him back to the group, he had had enough and disappeared).

Bad news - I lost a water bottle. Not sure when it happened, but I discovered it when I had my mouth full of Cliff Shot Blocks and Cliff Bar. It would have been nice to have something to wash that crud down. Anyway, had to ride the last 20 on saliva.

Bad news - The finish was much more narrow than I had anticipated. And even sitting in tenth, I was completely boxed in with 1 K to go. I had planned to take off at this point but had no room. Going on the left was out of the question as the center line rule was in effect and riders were guarding it with fervor. So I drifted back a little bit so that I could try on the right.

Good news - with 300 meters to go a crack opened up on the right and I mashed on the pedals to squeeze through. It was uphill the rest of the way at this point and I blasted by as fast as I could to get a good jump on the field. Luck shone on me by giving me that opening and the right timing. I was able to hold on by a pretty good gap for the win.

Bad news - I caught two riders from the Women's race at the finish, so any pictures taken may show me pumping my fist beating them rather than the guys I was racing with.

So the real bad news is that because of the mix up at registration, my victory did not earn me any points as the field size must be 30. I was pretty deflated by that and decided not to race this coming weekend which would have involved an overnighter anyway.

I immediately upgraded to Cat 3 based on top 10 finishes, but the disappointment of not meeting my points goal still stabs at me because I would have at least liked things in my control. Field sizes and people crashing into me might not have cost me the points, but it would have been nice to find out!

Until next time,
Eric

This text is a spacer to fix a browser compatibility issue with netscape and safari. This text is a spacer to fix a browser compatibility issue with netscape and safari.