Last Friday it was about this time of year again to head down to
The problem with this race is that it starts darn early (plus we lost an hour due to the time change) and that, no matter how good you feel, there is always a good chance that you will have some kind of technical problem. I for example flatted last year in the last dirt section, a mishap that probably cost us the win. This year, Ashley started it off on Saturday, not with a flat but a more serious issue. Her derailleur hanger broke and her derailleur ended up in her spokes, getting caught between the wheel and the frame and snapping the seat stay… not a good start. Unfortunately, this would not be the last technical issue of the weekend but at least the only one for Saturday.
Our strategy for this weekend was very different from the one we used in years past. Instead of controlling the race for the first 80 miles until the last dirt section, we send guys off early and rode much more aggressive. Mat was the first one to take off. He attacked just a couple of 100 yards into the race and was out of sight in no time. It took a while until the pack started to react (this might have been due to the fact that it was still only shortly after 8 am) but after about 15 miles a group of about 10 guys went off the front in pursuit of Mat. Cory covered that move for us, so we already had two guys off the front, just as we had planned. The idea was for Mat and Corey to attack early and try to make it as far ahead up the road so that we would have someone to bridge up to for Benji, Peter, Andrew and myself at the end. So, so far, so good.
As we approached the first dirt section, the lead pack had a gap of about 3 minutes but that changed dramatically by the time we got though it. At first, we just sat in the top 5 to10 but people were picking such bad lines that I decided to pick my own line. Apparently I picked up the pace in the process and Andrew and Gonzo took over the pace later on though the dirt section. By the time we had cleared the section, the pack had dwindled down to about 15 guys and the lead group was back in sight. Shortly thereafter we bridged up to the lead and now had the whole team in the lead pack of about 30 guys. At this point Mat, Corey and Gonzo went to the front and rode a nice tempo, just to make sure the group wouldn’t fill up by guys riding back into it.
Shortly before the second dirt section, Peter and Benji attacked simultaneously and got a little gap on the group. Unfortunately, the move came a bit too close to the dirt section and the two couldn’t get a big enough gap to make it over the KOM. As soon as we caught them, Andrew and I went to the front and forced the pace. I managed to ride away a little form the rest and go over the climb in first. This year a made sure to actually grab the bill for the KOM price. As a side effect of winning the KOM, the pack blew apart again and only Andrew, Peter, Travis Burandt and Evan Hyde were left at the front. The other two guys wouldn’t work with us, so we decided to let the chase group catch us. That left a lead group of 12 with Peter, Andrew, Benji and me in it and one more dirt section to go. At this point, we had covered about 66 of the 101 miles of the race.
Ten miles later, Mat Davis attacked and no one would chase him down. He is a good time trailist but I was not overly worried as we still had one dirt section to go and a pretty hard run-in to the finish so I told the others to stay calm and not waste any energy on chasing him down. Apparently, not everyone was of that mindset and the others in the group started to complain that we were making a mistake in letting Mat go and, as we were the strongest team in the group, we should chase him down. Instead, Peter attacked and chased by himself, taking any kind of pressure off our back and the others had to organize the chase. This put us in an excellent position to attack into the last dirt section. As soon as we hit the bottom of the climb at the start of the third and last dirt section, I went to the front and put the hammer down. The climb wasn’t very long but with 15% on gravel pretty steep and I opened up a gap pretty easily. Andrew followed Travis’ wheel up the climb and as soon as he was cracking, jumped across to me. Together we went on to hunt for Mat and, sure enough, about half way though the dirt section we had him reeled in. We tried to drop him on one of the shorter climbs but couldn’t shake him at first but I managed to open up a gap on the downhill and pushed hard up the last climb in the dirt section. That opened up a gap and Andrew, after seeing that Mat would not be able to close the gap, attacked on the same climb to drop Mat for good.
Once out of the final dirt section I waited for Andrew and together we worked hard to consolidate out gap. Those last 20 miles were really hard as we were going into a head wind and the roads were neither smooth nor flat. With about 5 miles to go Andrew had to sit on more and with about 2 to go he dropped off my wheel. I wanted to wait for him at first but as we didn’t know how big our gap was, I decided to play it safe and keep pushing to make it to the finish. Also, I figured if our gap was big enough, he would make it anyways but if not, we might loose everything.
So I got the honor of finishing up a great piece of team work by riding in by myself to win our first Rouge Roubaix. Andrew came in second, Peter fifth, Benji seventh, Gonzo 13th and Joe 16th. What a result! Everyone on the team preformed terrific and we had great support by Andre all weekend long.
This was definitely one of the hardest earned wins so far but it was well worth it. As always, the race was just epic and despite the pain a lot of fun. Hope to be back next year.
For some pics check out
Posts
1 comment:
Here's a link to the race video:
http://www.tunicatrails.org/VIDEO/rougeroubaix2009.html
Post a Comment