Silver Spring; Not Windy
if you read my post below first, the title of this post will make more sense.I'd like to criticize NCVC's tactics. There was a guy away, Nick Bax, who has soloed successfully in the District RR, a race a couple weeks ago, and again today. Instead of getting their three solid guys: Wade, Stephen, and Frederick to run a paceline with me and John Raley and Mike Esmonde from RT. 1, and whatever other non cat 4 cat 3s in the race (pro wheelsuckers), they sent Stephen up the road solo, while they blocked. So Stephen is a strong guy, he dropped me while we were OTF at Bethesda last year, and won the race, while I was only 9th. So I respect Stephen, but he just became a three and that move was not going to work. So I pulled. John pulled. Mike E pulled. But Nick wasn't coming back. Stephen came back but Fred and Wade had left it too late to do any work, so Fred led Wade out, real nice job there, they blew past me on the backstrech, and I couldn't find my way around Fred in the turn, and Mike was in front of me too, and that was the way it stayed, so I got fifth. I mean it was nice they got 2nd and 4th and Stephen was top ten too, but c'mon who wants to race for 2nd? If Stephen had just taken a pull instead of trying to solo, then Wade probably wins the sprint for first instead of second. Just a thought...
Also a comment here on nose diving. Major nose dive done in turn one by some dude wearing a BAR jersey and TSV shorts. I had to either let him in or make him eat the curb and I let him in. Three seconds later I hear like six guys go down. Hmmmm. Let me just say that I didn't have to let him in, and assuming that me letting him in caused a domino effect that resulted in a crash, it really makes me wonder if it would have been more humane to stiff arm him and let him eat the curb. One guy vs. six guys (including my teammate Vic). I'd just like to point out that if you nose dive, the guy doesn't have to let you in, and if he doesn't and you eat curb, you have no one to blame but yourself. Especially in this case as were talking a 130 pound guy vs. a 185 pound guy. It isn't as if there weren't places to pass on this course, and the inside of turn one wasn't the most brilliant places to do it, that is for sure. Probably there wasn't a direct connection between that move and the crash, cause there were sketchy moves going on the outside of that turn too, but anyway, don't nose dive ok? (No this is not a guest post by Robb Hampton who is getting better at finales BTW, and was 12th).
posted by Mark @ 7:29 PM
<< Home