In Your Travels

Podium(s) at Quicksilver

A good day out at the Quicksilver race course. I rode out there from my house. It was a huge headwind coming at me the whole way there, forcing me to go hard to stay on schedule. But once there, the race was running late, which meant I got to see Craig Clark feature in a three man break in the 50+. One Evo vs. two DC Velo. Craig had some nice blocking from teammate Paul who took some soft turns at the front to help the break stay away. The DC Velo dudes tried the old one two punch on Craig, but he was having none of it. He pulled them back to set up a sprint. He made that look easy and chalked up a V.

~50 guys and one woman started the Cat three race. Lots of little attacks and counters as people tried flyers to get primes, but nobody seemed too serious. Someone who shall remain nameless hit a cone with 8 to go, I had to dodge it and the thing bounced off my rear wheel. which caused a crash. Nobody was seriously hurt though, but I took him to task for it later...anyway on that lap a Snow Valley guy was clear, and Art from Coppi and Neil from Artemis were chasing. I bridged across as they rang the prime bell we tried to catch the SV. We didn't, but got him not long after seeing 7 to go. We had trouble getting an even tug going and we floundered a little bit. We gapped off Art. We had a good gap so I kept it going but eventually some dudes responded and a split came across to us. Only Frederick from NCVC was pulling though hard enough. Typical lame cat 3 break. Everybody has to give everything they've got just to make the gap and once they're clear they don't know how to keep it going by rotating through with enough speed. Or they expect everybody else to do the suffering and they don't work hard enough. I mean if you want to make it stick, you have to make it hurt like ick! I had slipped some of the sprinters so it was a bummer to get brought back. But I really needed one of those strongmen to drive the break with me, cause you get going so fast on the Quicksilver, which has a 35MPH downhill on the backside, that you have to really ramp up the speed there. Anyway at least my move strung out the field and caused some panic and forced a reaction. It was probably a little too early though. I'm going a TT next Saturday so it was good practice anyway.

I dropped back for a lap but came back around to the front. A young Snow Valley dude tried to go for a long one. It was real studly in a high school senior kind of way. That is to say, vain. Like he was going to hold off the whole field by himself for two or three laps at the end of the race. No. I kept some good position and got on Frederick's wheel at the bottom of the hill on the backside. I was second wheel, while one guy had attacked (way too early). I kind of zoned out and didn't really think hard enough about where I wanted to jump. So Bo Lee and John Raley take off on my left. The road there falls to the right, so they broke left in effect going up grade, hard. I was out of position and I couldn't really cover it, I had just blown the chance to win because I needed to have layed off and wound up, whereas I was just kind of on the wheel. We're coming up on the last turn and I figure out if I can get underneath Fred then that will be good, so I jump big time. I kick around Fred and pass mr. early dude exiting the corner. My jump took me clear of the rest so I just muscled over the gear seated, nobody pushed me for third, while I got a nice view of John and Bo sprinting it out for the win, with Bo taking the win about three lengths in front of me, with fourth about two lengths back of me.

So chalk up podim number five for me for the year. I had told myself that this was a good race for me, and I was hoping for a win today. The course really suits me, very fast, with a power climb and not too much speeding up and slowing down, and a wide open sprint finish. So it is a little hard not to win, but no shame to lose to Bo and John, two guys who are always banging. Count me in that lot too!

So, TT next Saturday, big money double points crit in Silver Spring on Sunday. I'm really gunning for a win in that TT. I've been training very hard on the TT bike and I'm totally fitted to it and extremely comfortable in the aero position. My goal is to set a personal record and win the race. I PR would probably take the win, my best time is 58:25. I think I can do one or two minutes better than that.

Sunday is not a great course for me perhaps, but maybe it will turn out well anyway. I did that race last year but was super tired so I shouldn't use that experience too much as a gage. Just need to stay in the front and make the race hard. The good news is I'm totally free of the doldrums and on the upswing, so I'm sure I can produce some more good results in the coming weeks and keep moving up in the BAR, I probably bumped up into 6th today. So, good job and two Evo podiums, I'll try to find out how the 1/2/3 went and post that later.

posted by Mark @ 2:52 PM