Market Street Road Race

I had a great time at the road race today. Here's the email report I sent to my team, plus a picture (warning - exposed skin):

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With ominous and brisk weather a select few stalwart cat 3's of Cucina Fresca, many of whom wanted to join the Master's race, headed out for a romp of 6 laps of the famous course. OK, I had never ridden it, but others had, and someone else referred to it as "classic". I apologize for not knowing everyone's name, or last name in some cases. I was joined by Don, Mike (Hart, I had to ask when he said his name was Mike), Brian (?), Rob, and one other rider approximately the same size as Don. The only real "plan" we had in place was - let's hope nothing happens until at least the halfway point, after which if there's a break, at least one of us will try to get in it. We had no designated leader, per se. Heck, this was my first road race in 5.3 years, so I wasn't going to start beating my chest!

After the neutral rollout of a couple of miles, we past the start/finish and rolled around the course for a first lap average of around 27+ mph. Some kids were anxious. I just remember grinning and thinking about how much I missed this action - I yelled, "Now we're racing!" which elicited a few sarcastic laughs. We returned to the hill up to the start/finish, and a small group splintered off. I was too far back to really identify anyone in the break other than a Carter/Subaru - we can pick on them for the red, but you can't miss it, even when it is way up the road. I was wishing we had a bigger tomato on the back...

I ignored this group, since there was a lot of racing left. Thankfully the pace let up a bit, but for some reason people were now starting to freak about the pot holes. Let me tell you - there were a lot of pot holes. Combine that with a lot of "I don't want to ride over a pot hole", and the inevitable happened. The dude in front of me slowed suddenly, and then swerved right into my front wheel. I went down quickly, along with a couple of others right behind me, but jumped up just as quickly, and managed to rejoin the group thanks to a bit of adrenaline. I stayed near the back for the next lap to lick my wounds. I asked the guy behind me if my shorts were ripped, but he said they were just dirty. My left cheek sure hurt, though.

I saw Rob who was missing his bottles - he lost them when he hit a pot hole. I only had one bottle, so there wasn't much I could do, and he soldiered on. I was about to mention that Paolo Bettini goes for 5 hour rides with no water or food as training, but I'm not sure it would have helped.

A couple of laps went by without incident, and we mostly just cruised while 5 or 6 Wines guys were at the front. I was asking around if they were blocking, since we weren't exactly flying, or if they'd missed the break, but no one around me knew. I also asked our guys if they knew if we had anyone in the break, but Mike said he was up near the front when the group went off, and he was pretty sure we weren't in it. It did seem like were pulling them back, and a rider from the break would drop off every so often. We passed the 3 to go lap card, the halfway point, and I started trying to work closer to the front. We caught the break on this lap, and another small break went off, but they got caught too. There was another crash near the back of the field, but none of us were in it. The next time through the start/finish, they rang the bell, which elicted much confusion - everyone knew we were supposed to have another lap. But we didn't argue.

I moved to the front, as I saw Brian Venable (a.k.a. Venny) was getting itchy, and he's one of the few strong 3's I know of (not on Cucina Fresca, of course). He went, with two others, and I bridged. We were joined by a couple more, but despite my urging, we didn't get organized fast enough, and the pack was right there. Another guy went from First Rate, and I was on this wheel, but again, we didn't get anywhere. Some guy with Sega on his shorts went for a solo flyer, which lasted for a long time, and Venny bridged. But, we caught them after about a mile. Then there was another much bigger crash - some guy in front of Don swerved and bumped his wheel, he managed to stay upright, but I hit his rear wheel hard and just barely stayed up. Somewhere behind us the chain reaction sounded pretty big, but we were full on in flight for the finish now. We rounded the hard turn, went up the final hill at a pace brisk enough to shell a lot of riders - Don, Don sized guy, and I moved up the right side right near the edge, and we were in the top 20-30 coming up the false flat to the finish. I got stuck behind a couple of riders who were "going backwards" and lost contact with the top 10. I think all told we had three in the top 20, but none of us cracked the top 10.

I had an average of just over 24 mph including the neutral, so we were somewhere in the vicinity of 25 mph for the actual 45 miles of spontaneously shortened racing, thanks to the missing lap. The initial field size was somewhere around 50-60, I think.

I think some guy from Wines must have won - there were a group of them in front of my car afterward. I asked them if they had a guy in the early break, or if they were chasing. They all laughed and one of them said, "We were chasing our asses off - that's pretty sad that it wasn't fast enough for you to be able to tell the difference!"

It was fun, except for the crashes. I'm sitting on my right cheek only right now, but I'll heal. Dr Emy got me all patched up.

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Here's the aftermath of the crash. There's a bit more higher up, but you never know, someone might be reading this at work...


Update: I was wrong about Cucina Fresca not making the top 10 - "Don sized guy" is Bill Zimmerman, and he was 9th. Don was 13th, and I got 18th. And, the field size was 80 riders! Not bad for my re-entry to the peloton! Results here (Excel spreadsheet)