Well, folks what a fun and exciting race. Golly. This was my 1st attempt in the cat 2 field as I had done the 3s last year and it is a whole new, and challenging level. Thursday's time trial is a very interesting event. I was not sure if it was more appropriate to whip out the cross bike on maybe just put some clip-ons on the ol' mountain bike. It's a lot uphill, and very bumby. So, it's very hard to rest in the 1st 1/2 or to get a good rhythm. I was planning on just riding hard without too specific a goal and was at least happy to take 30 seconds off my last years time. Kevin Wolfson had a great time- pretty much the theme for the weekend is that Kevin and Jerome are killing it.

The road race is one of the hardest on the New England circuit. There is a 12 mi loop we were to do 8 times plus a climb at the end which brings the riders to the summit of Mount Wachusette. As a general rule, I always find races which end in places that have chairlifts are hard. I was jinxed this day as I flatted 1.5 laps into the race at the very base of a long climb. Luckily I had my Dura-Ace tubular wheels on and was able to make it to the feed zone with the flat. Riding with a flat could be some new sort of power training. grrrr!! I jumped off the bike ready for a faster change than some of my past trials, but crazily the wheel car was in front of me with a break. I had no money in my pockets, so kept the long string of profanity in my mind to myself instead of making a large contribution to the potty mouth jar. Instead I was wowed by the work of my teamate's dad, Steve Branfman, who ran to the car and grabbed Adam's spare wheel for me. I got rolling again and got though the decent chasing at what must have been 60 mph +,but was not able to catch the group. SO, I had a lovely solo effort of 100k + to make the time cut. Guess the miles will help the legs.

Day #3 was the circuit race, which had been on day #2 in previous years. I was so hurting from the 3 hr solo effort in the road race I could barely hang with the power surges in on the "finish" hill for a few laps. Eventually I found myself doing some more base miles off the back with my crown jewel. With such a crowd yelling and screaming I figured I better keep on moving to finish the race. BTW the P1 field averaged 29+ mph x 75 miles. Wow.

The 4th, & final day's, crit is always fun. I had now obtained a lantern rouge to defend and was not going to let it be taken- even if it meant having to trackstand at the finish line until moments before the time cut. This was going to be tough as I knew Kenda-Raleigh's Colin Murphy was gunning for the same honor and was only minutes ahead of me. Any mishap ane he culd have done worse. -or better?? Appratently for le Tour, the Lantern Rouge earns a bit of celebrity, so I was hoping for the same result. I has a super time surfing through the field and saving as much energy as possible. Tommy G looked at me at one point and said "hey, tailgunning this course is great!" You were able to glide down the backside's decent and storm up the hill every time. No thanks to me me, Jerome impressed with a solid 4th place finish and proved he is well on the way to that cat 1 upgrade.

A non-performance highlight in the race talking with Dick Ring at the finish and his telling me how psyched he was about IF. He was riding a crown jewel over the past few years and his material of choice was steel. He said, he was "knda old school, " and I was like "NO Way!"

Good pics from circuit race to come, but cannot get them to download yet.......

Labels: Fitchburg Stage Race Category 2