So it turns out that Saskatoon is a long way from Calgary. However, the 7 hour drive was well worth it for the torrential downpour that greeted the Speed Theorists at the Bikes on Broadway race.
The Time Trial was a brutal affair punctuated with howling wind and blowing rain. 8 km of snot and spittle later Darcy pulled in 6th place in the Cat 5 time trial (you might hear something about him missing a start time preventing him from winning the thing... but we're not sure about that), with me a close 8th, Dave Holmes and Rob Welch were a minute off the pace, but still within striking distance of the top GC contenders.
The plan was to mark any breakaway attempts with Rob and Dave and if the pack came together I was going to go for the sprint finish. The Cat 5 road race started at a leisurely pace as few teams felt the need to work hard off the start. Speed Theory represented with all four of our riders near the front for the first 30km. The pace picked up a bit for the next little while as we had a nice tail wind. A few brave souls (including myself) attempted to make life interesting with a couple of half hearted attacks. The race knew that the ride back into the head wind would be nasty for any smaller group none of the attacks stuck.
After the turn around, Speed Theory spent some time at the front pulling into the headwind, but I decided that we were wasting too much energy and fell back into the relative safety of the pack. A sketchy rider took out one of the brave females who decided to ride Cat 5 and she crashed out in front of me. Fortunately, I did hit her and go down as well. The sketchy rider was then continually sketchy and I ripped a strip out of him after he almost took me down as well. Dave thinks I'm scary.
With about 20km left, Rob launched an attack off the front that had the potential to be a game winner. It was marked by an ERTC rider who was obviously not working for himself (working hard at the front of the ride) and I understand that he wasn't actually willing to help Welchie in the break. But did when Welchie told him that his wife was watching. Dave & I stuck with the pack allowing the other teams to work to attempt to bring back the break. The break was caught around the top of the hill, but another one form just over the hill. I watched as Dave and Rob were safely in the break and turned off the gas a bit not wanting to pull anybody else up into the break. A brave rider from Saskatchewan sprinted to attempt to bridge, and I marked him up. At one point he looked back and wondered if I wanted to do any work, at which point I said "I'm sorry, I have two guys up in the break" He seemed pretty cool with that and continued to haul ass attempting to bridge. On one of the last few hills I cracked a little and fell off his wheel. I was alone and finding a last second wind, managed to get back to him and nip him about 10m from the finish line. Overall, Speed Theory placed 3rd (Rob), 4th (Dave), 8th (me) and, back with the group was Darcy. I think it was a highly successful race from a Cat 5 perspective as we worked hard to ensure that the break was made and stayed away.
Tomorrow is the Crit and I am hoping for some good things.
The women's race went really well for Emilie as she kept with the pack for the entire thing except for the last 15km when she was pushed off the road and had a small crash. (Just a bent derailleur hanger to show for it, not even a small road rash) I guess that Emilie was then considered the "pack" as the wheel car followed her for the rest of the race. Emilie is extremely happy with her race, but was peeved about getting crashed out.
4 comments:
Congrats guys!
Nice Welchie has confidence in his bike now!
Look out!
Yes, I confess I had LHD and didn't sync my watch with the official time before the ITT. Drat!
Crit Report: Monday morning the skies cleared and the wind stopped, so the BOB crit happened without a hitch. The cat 5 affair saw a fairly brisk pace and a few crashes, but after about 10 minutes of racing the lead group was safely established, with David M, David H, and Darcy G represented. Holmes and Morgantini rep'd the black and red to well deserved 3rd and 4th places, while I dropped out the back in the last few minutes to roll in for 12th, and Welchie wound up separated from the bunch and came home for 13th. Jason B. worked with two other guys in the cat 4 race to hold off the main pack, and Emile rode very strong in the women's race to finish with the bunch in 4th. Solid crit racing by all.
The overall GC is:
Cat 4: Jason B. in 16th.
Cat 5: David H. in 6th, Welchie in 7th, David M. in 9th, and Darcy G. in 10th.
Women: Emile L. in 5th.
All in all, a good weekend for Speed Theory in Saskatoon.
Great results for everyone! Nice work peoples.
Another quick version of events of super cat five in saskatoon:
ITT: one word Monsoon. You often hear people say "OMG the wind was so strong I got blown off the road."
This actually happened. Instead of the 8.2km #250 had to do least double that once he found his way back to the yellow brick road.
RR: Super fun, rainy, windy, all of us up at the front laughing and eating sandwiches, reciting 1890’s Canadian poetry.
Like Big Dave said with about 25k to go #250 decided to bridge to an ETRC guy who was taking a flier off the front.
After a quick smoke and cold pancake ETRC man agreed to stay away from the pack until we could get to the bridge. This was #250’smaster plan as at the bridge was his wife.
The plan was for her to throw Powerbars on the bridge thus stopping the peloton in its tracks as the cold wet malnourished cyclists stopped to gather much needed protein for the gruelling remaining 15km.
This did not work as she did not have any Powerbars and just took some pictures. They will be up soon.
After words little Dave and 250 sat in the pocket of the ERTC yellow and orange bus up to the 3k line when Dave tried the afterburn switch on his bike only to realise it also activated the tractor beam sucking everything in behind him.
At the rusty car on the side of the road that marked 1.5k to go the lone synergy dude started whar was to be the 1500m “sprint” . 250 hesitated for a second debating to go with or sit back for a bit and enjoy the wonderful smell emanating off of wet stinky cyclists, but alas it would not matter as the green Synergy rocket took the Batoche battlegrounds for the glory rest of us following in order.
As it is understood the big drama at the finish line was when big Dave stormed the line, reminiscent of Major General Frederick Middleton all those years ago, putting the 10 meter hurt on the native Saskatonian...so fitting.
Crit: All I was told about this was the scary dominance of the Daves off the front. Scaring little children, and impregnating small animals with their testosterone saturated sweat.
Number 250 was suck in the literal middle of know where finishing 13out of the 13 that finished..one min behind 12th.
I don’t think #250 had ever worked so hard before just in an effort not to get lapped...or it could have been the fear of that testosterone saturated sweat coming up behind him.
Fun fun
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