Duke in London, Duke in New York ... why not Duke in Ohio?
'Second thought, better not answer that one.
I made it out today for the last crit of the local race calendar, and whadayaknow, I won! And it's my birthday! (No kidding, 32 today ...) I'm psyched not only by the win but by the fact that I came in with a strategy and managed to enact it during the race. I found out about the race on a local team's discussion board, and from their comments, I picked up a bit of info which turned out to be useful. First, they're the biggest team in the area, and they fielded 9 of the 25 guys in the race. Second, they've got a clear alpha rider, who runs the team and appears to have the strongest results, so I should watch him. And third, another one of their riders is a triathlete who won the last race in a two-man breakaway thanks to some heavy blocking from his big team. So I figured I'd cover those two and try not to let anything get away with them in it and me behind.
Well, straight off, I was stuck in the middle of the pack when the triathlete took off in a small break. As expected, his team started blocking and the bunch got a gap. As soon as I worked my way out, I took off trying to bridge, but alpha marked my attack and so, rather than bridge, I ended up just bringing the pack up and shutting the break down. Shortly after that, alpha attacked and I went with him. We got a gap, but he wasn't working too hard and kept talking about "conserving" (with the pack 5 seconds back? too soon, too soon ...). So after a couple laps we got caught. But just after we did, the triathlete counterattacked and I jumped up to his wheel. From then on, he and I never saw the pack again, and our gap got as big as 25 seconds.
Coming into the last lap, I figured I might have the upper hand, since triatheltes train to be big diesels, all steady state but no sprint -- good for a breakaway, but not for the sprint at the end. He was pulling as we passed the bell, and with such a big gap, I decided to sit on his wheel and play the "I'd rather get caught than get second" game of chicken with him. He slowed to about 18mph, but then caved and pulled us into the finishing straight. I came around him with about 150 meters remaining, and I had enough of a lead as I neared the line to give a victory salute. (Good thing Chris, John and I practiced that on my going-away ride ...).
If this race is representative, I don't think the cat 4s are quite as competitive here as they are in NC. I'm not knocking the local racers -- I think it's mostly a product of the fact that there are more races here than in the Triangle, so more chances to gain upgrade points. How many races were there in central NC this year? 10? Maybe 12? With so few chances, you have to place in the majority of events or you won't get enough points to upgrade. Here, there seem to be around 20 races anually, so more chances to pick up a few points here and there.
Update: you can read the other team's side on the
7 Hills Racing forum. "Young oaks," hmm, I like that :).
