Things got a bit crazy at work this past week. There are three of us in my lab. The lab manager went on leave for two weeks starting this past Tuesday. Katie, the lab tech and I can take anything that comes at us between the two of us. Unfortunately Katie had a mishap around mid day on Tuesday that resulted in a broken knee cap... leaving me flying solo in the lab on very short notice. Needless to say finishing out the Tour de Syracuse race report got put on the back burner.
Day one was the crit. The announcer said it was the fastest women's race they have ever seen on that course. Day 2 started with a 6:15 AM pickup by Ernie and then a quick stop on Ringwood to pick up Jack. We got to the venue in plenty of time to have a relaxed race prep for our 3 mile TT's. Not much a person can say about a 3 mile TT on a mostly flat course with favorable wind conditions. Peg it from the line and hold it for 7 minutes ....
Lots of people had their full TT regalia on show - TT bikes, TT helmets, skin suits, shoe covers. You name it. I bolted my aero bars onto my road bike and put some shoe covers on (because I have them and this is the only time I ever use them), but just had my regular helmet. They sent us out 1 every 15 seconds, but in order to have time for each rider to get both feet clipped in and held for their start, they started us in two rows, each row with a holder, leaving 30 seconds between riders within one line. I was feeling rather more unbalanced than usual and couldn't get both feet clipped in, so I asked to have a standing start. Definitely a slow way to go, but faster than being let go and falling over. I covered the distance in 7:15 and that was good enough for a midfield finish - 11th place. Jim Danvers was out taking pictures at the first turn in the course and I think he got me in two pictures from batch 2. You can see them at his website Jim Danvers Photography.
Then it was drink up and eat up, take off the aero bars and hurry up and wait (30 minute delay) for the road race. The road race was 55 miles - two laps on a nice loop that had one long (3 mile?) climb and a 1 mile climb and between the two of them a short super steep pitch. The rest was gently rolling and had the potential to be super fast. However, the fastest women's crit did not carry over to the road race.... We were probably the slowest pro/1/2/3 road race in the history of this course. There was one team that fielded 9 riders and they felt the need to have all 9 of them together side by side in the road race, however not all of them were good climbers. So every time we hit a rise a gap would form and the Stevens team would all advance (on the wrong side of the yellow line) to the front of the peleton and slow down to a crawl. Then we would surge up another rise only to have them go to the front and sit up. This meant that every time we got a decent gap and split the field, the gap would last at most 30 seconds and then get reeled back in. VERY frustrating. On lap 2 on a long flat section before the 3 mile climb a couple women went up the road and no one chased. Those two got away and stayed away. A bit later another woman went up the road and no one chased, 10-20 seconds later another one went, and 10 - 20 seconds later again a third woman went. I decided to go with her and moved up the inside and chased her down. Some one chased the two of us down and the of us caught the two women in front of us. The five of us stayed away from the pack for maybe 5 miles before we got caught by the pack on the long climb. After that the pack stayed together until the finish hill where things strung out a bit again. I ended up 13th across the line. Jim caught me crossing the line at the finish. I obviously was not working hard enough since I was smiling in the picture. Whoops... It is picture 54 in batch 5.
Due to my poor placing in the crit, my two mid field finishes were not enough to put me midfield in the overall. My omnium overall place was 17th out of 22.
No comments:
Post a Comment