Vance Creek Cat 3 2009 Race Report

Well, I guess it falls to me to write the Cat 3 race report for Vance Creek. As usual, I’m well aware that nobody has actually requested a race report, but why do you think I care? In any case, I’m eating my breakfast as I write, so it’s not entirely wasting my time.

About 72 of us (not all from Apex Racing, of course) lined up under the shadows of the nuclear cooling towers for the 80 mile race. We had me, Lyle, Ben, Olivier, SteveO, Greg and Jay. Not a bad team, if you were to ask me. I think maybe Recycled might have had similar numbers. We rolled out and within about 300 meters SteveO had a mechanical. I guess he thought those front skewers were merely ornamental because he didn’t bother closing it tight. Anyhow, it took him a few miles but he was able to chase back on. Although, he would break a spoke on the following lap and have to drop out altogether.

The first lap was nothing too difficult. There were a few surges and attacks but nothing really stuck. At the start of the second lap a break formed and I hopped on a wheel of a guy who was bridging up. It seemed early for a break to go away and stick, but you never know. And in any case, I like to pretend to be useful…occasionally. Soon we had about 6-8 guys from several different teams. It actually seemed like the sort of combination that could work well together and not get chased down right away. Not so. We were chased down with a few miles. Too early in the race, I guess. Later that lap a group of three got off the front and Greg launched after them. They already had a pretty good gap and were working well together otherwise Greg would have been able to bridge up. It was painful to watch him trapped up there in no-man’s land …but that just happens sometimes. Once it was clear that he was coming back to the main group, Ben launched a perfect counter attack near the bottom of the climb. He passed Greg and eventually caught the three-man group at the top of the hill. They stayed out there for some now unrecollectable(not a real word) length of time… that is to say, I don’t remember exactly. Btw, me not remembering people, events, time and distances and generally getting ‘facts’ wrong will be an ongoing theme in this report (and in my life.) And as usual, it will be written from my limited perspective. I’m sure the other guys probably performed numerous heroic deeds and maneuvers that I didn’t notice, have forgotten about or just ignored.

Anyhow, back to the race. Over the first 3 laps Ben was in a break as was Olivier. In fact, after Olivier’s break was brought back, I heard a guy tell his teammate that Olivier was really strong in the break. He seemed relieved that the break didn’t succeed, clearly fearing being dropped by Olivier. A few miles from the end of the 3rd lap my rear tire started to thumpthump. I thought it was going flat so I found Lyle in the group to ask him to have a look at it. He said the tire was fine (a blatant lie!) and that the thumping was probably just from the road surface. As we got near the top of the climb I started worrying that something was really wrong with my tire and that it might blow up on the fast descent. About 30 seconds later at the top of the hill, it blew up. I was relieved that it happened there at probably the slowest spot on the whole course. My wheel change was kinda slow so I probably lost about a minute. I didn’t really have much expectation that I could close that gap and get back with the pack. After a mile or two the wheel car caught up with me and tried to pace me back on. It was a nice idea but in my experience the drivers never let you actually get close enough to the car to get a proper draft. So, I almost blew myself up just trying to catch the wheel car. Just as I was convincing him to slow down, he had to pull over to help some other guy with a flat.

The pack seemed long gone by the time I reached the bottom of the hill but I figured I’d at least chase for one full lap. And I did. And it sucked. I slowly closed the gap and after that flat stretch past the farm roads I got within about 40 meters of the back of the pack… but I just could not close the distance. So I sat there so-dang-close for about 4 miles, at my limit. For me it was the pain cave that Herriott liked to talk about. Finally somebody crashed in the pack and the wheel car pulled up and said, “Here’s your chance, go!”. I tried to accelerate but not much happened except the pack accelerated. Finally I was able to close that last bit of distance and got back into the pack right at the bottom of the hill. I’m not sure how fast we went up the hill but I’d had no time to recover. I made it to the top just on the back of the group but then some smartass punched it across the flats on top and I came off the back. I just couldn’t imagine catching back on again after that. I was cooked so I pulled out.

I think the acceleration at the top of the hill was a response to Greg getting into another break. I think he went on the hill and eventually two other guys hooked up with him. I was sitting at the feed zone hill when they came around the next time and they still had a decent gap on the field. Apparently since Recycled didn’t have anyone in the break, they put all of their guys into chasing Greg. It was successful in both pulling back Greg (with 5k to go) but also in blowing up their entire team. So I think their best finisher ended up 32nd place. So, Greg set things up perfectly, basically destroying a whole team in the process. With Recycled out of the way and our guys being able to just sit in, both Lyle and Olivier were able to get in great position for the finish. It seems that a Lenovo guy jumped early and was able to open up a 20 meter gap and held it to the line. One Starbucks got in the gap but Lyle and Olivier were right there and finished strong in 3rd and 4th place. Jay rolled in with the group and Greg came in just a little ways back, smiling. All in all it was a great team effort, with great results. I think a win, one way or another is just around the corner.