We ended up getting to John Bryan State Park at probably about 4 PM on Saturday, just in time to meet up with the Maruts and Jeff Craft to take a few practice laps around the course.
Riding the course, I was pretty concerned. It was extremely wide open with little to no technical stuff, and as flat as a pancake. It suited a rider that could keep it steady the entire time. That's pretty much the opposite of me. I like little short punchy surges and technical stuff as an opportunity to recover. Oh well.
So with pretty much half of Team Lake Effect together, we were able to take some practice laps and geek out about tire choices for tomorrow. After that it was off to the hotel and time for dinner. I'm not sure what the drive did to me, but I was exhausted by 7:30 PM and in bed by 9:00. This was shaping up to be the first time in history I was going to be well rested for a race.
Morning came bright and early at 7:30 AM, which actually wasn't too bad for this newfound workin' man. We got to the park by Ten and were able to watch Scott Marut turn in an impressive finish in the Cat 4 35+ field.
After witnessing numerous state championships being brought back to Cleveland (Nate Loman in 35+ Cat 3, Rudy in 45+ Elite Masters, and Robert in 15/16 Juniors) I realized it was about time for my race.
I took my warmup around the park and my legs felt like trash. Not good. Desperate times called for desperate measures and I had enough time to get on to the trainer for some high cadence action in an attempt to blow the stink out of my legs. To my delight, it actually worked.
Lining up, I got to talking with Tony and realized we were about an equal level of nervous. The whistle went off, and I was able to pull together a strong start. The nerves quickly subsided and I was on my way to racing my race.
For the first lap I was hanging with the front three. I very quickly realized this wasn't going to last much longer, but I needed to hang on as long as I could and avoid the bottlenecks and try to open a gap when they did.
Starting the second lap, an Essex Brass rider attacked, and Jon Card countered. I pretty much couldn't do anything but laugh at that since I didn't have anywhere close to the legs they did. They were off, and Tony, myself, and one other guy formed a chase group.
I was holding off blowing up spectacularly, and though I might have been able to tough it out for the rest of the race. If anything, I saw Shawn Adams and Matt Weeks were catching up mighty quickly, and I wanted to help them bridge up to the front group.
So big plans swirling in my brain, I take the sharp off-camber turn right before the finish chute.
SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT my tire rolls. Not again. Not today. Not now. Piss.
Since I'm very quickly becoming an expert at this, I don't panic. I roll my tire back on the rim, and head out towards the pit very gingerly. As pretty much everyone passed me en route, my big dreams vanish in a poof of tainted tubular glue.
As I got to the pit I was sort of at a loss. I didn't bring the pit bike, because we didn't have enough space. The plan was to put my pedals on Rudy's bike, but I was too busy warming up to remember. I'm on a slightly antiquated 9 speed setup, so no one had a backup wheel for me.
DNF. Fuck.
On a good note, Matt and Shawn both finished second and third in the state, respectively. Tony finished in 12th, in the money just as he expected.
The one strange thing that I noticed on the day was the lack of recognition that the Cleveland area riders were getting. Not sure if it was because the announcer was from the area and saw familiar faces he could talk about or something else.
Hopefully by next year he'll realize that Cleveland riders brought home a serious chunk of hardware from this year, and might give a bit more credit where it is due.
1 comment:
you were racing an awesome race john and you would have been in the money for sure, not doubt. it happens to everyone and just keep racing strong. good job brotha
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