2010 Connecticut Stage Race Report - TARGETRAINING’S Masters Team

Having done this race in the Pro/1/2 category last year when Eneas won the overall General Classification, and feeling all of my age with the young guns at the time, Badger and I opted to let the young ones battle it out while we did the Master’s Race. It was refreshing to see others with balding heads and smell the aroma of Bengay floating in the air. Although I must say Badger’s full head of non-graying hair doesn’t seem fair.

The race consisted of three stages including an eight mile time trial, a thirty-one mile circuit race, and ninty-one mile road race. In addition to competing for individual stage wins, we also battled for the Overall General Classification Competition (Yellow Jersey), King of the Mountains Competition KOM (polka dot jersey), and Sprint Competition (Green Jersey). Overall, a well run race over some quiet and beautiful roads. Here’s the link for more information: http://www.connecticutstagerace.com/

Stage 1 - Time Trial:

Jonny Bold, Troy Kimball, and Girard O'Shea came out on top with some pretty good times. Although Jonny’s a very strong rider and making up any time on him over the next 2 stages to contest the Yellow Jersey would be very difficult, this is biking racing so you never really know how things will play out until the end. In addition to challenging for the Yellow Jersey, there were other opportunities and competitions open for grabs over the next 2 stages.

Stage 2 - Circuit Race:

Even though this was a pretty short stage (31 miles on a 3 mile loop), there were KOM points and Sprinter points awarded frequently throughout the stage which made it both interesting and challenging. Visions of all those bells ringing and flags flying indicating the start of another lap and another opportunity to gain points made my head spin pre-race, so when the first KOM flag and bell signaled some points were up for grabs I set off solo to capture some points. I caught and passed another guy who took off on lap 1 and had a good gap on the field to capture the first KOM points as signaled by the official. Turns out that the official failed to ring the bell on the correct lap so I was one lap late for those points. Of course, at the time I didn’t know that so kept it going on my own hoping to grab some more points and small time bonuses.

I managed to build up a pretty nice 45 second gap and gobbled up top KOM and Sprinter Points as the laps counted down. It’s only 31 miles, but trying to ride the rest alone on a pretty challenging course with 3 or 4 laps left didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore, especially since I thought that had accumulated enough points already to at least give me the KOM Jersey. Plus it’s always good to save a little in the tank for stage 3’s long road race. I pulled the plug and re-joined the field just in time for yet another Sprint Point’s lap. Badger urged me to give it a go and somehow I managed to muster up the strength to hit the line first and accumulate a few more Sprint points and small time bonus.

As we hit the final lap and dash to the finishing line, I had a little left in the tank but got stuck behind some slower moving traffic on the right so couldn’t sprint for it. However, a good friend Monte Frank did manage to win the stage while also capturing the Sprinter’s Jersey having accumulated enough points during the stage to beat me. We’re still friends though :-)

Stage 3 - Long Road Race:

Badger and I were literally together for maybe 3 miles in this race. Shortly after the race started he set off on his own to put a little pressure on the leader’s team hoping to perhaps draw a few riders up to join him for the long haul to the finish at mile 91. No-one attempted to bridge and the leading team did a good job setting a steady pace keeping his gap in check at about 30 seconds or so. Back in the day, actually not too long ago, we were allowed to use radios which would have been pretty cool for communicating with one another. Eventually, Badger let up as no-one even attempted to bridge to him and we were still about 15 to 20 miles into the race. His move did cause the leader’s team to expend a bit of energy up at the front, especially the KOM Leader Bill Shattuck. As I wrote above, I didn’t get the KOM Jersey like I thought I did during the Circuit Race due to error both on the part of the officials for ringing the bell on the wrong lap and myself for not knowing better at the time. Hopefully the current KOM leaders efforts to chase Badger down would work in our favor later in the day.

Being the great team-mate that he is, Badger handed me a full water bottle which, to me anyways, signaled his passing the torch over to me for now. Shortly after he re-entered the field, I jumped slightly at the top of a little climb and was off on my own and there was no reaction from the field. With 70 miles left to the finish and a little over 30 miles to some additional KOM and Sprint Points it was going to take some luck, focus, and hard riding to get something out of this move. I put in a steady effort, looking back occasionally, and never saw the field again for many miles. It was a long and lonely road and my goal was to gain maximum points at mile 51 and 53 for both KOM and Sprint Competition and then hang on for dear life when/if I got caught.

The second half of the route is pretty darn hilly and will quickly drain someone who enters with tired legs. I was careful to eat and drink but at some point accidentally dropped some food that I was carrying. I knew this loss would eventually bite me in the butt. I gobbled up full points at mile 51 and 53, which was a relief, but now had to deal with a chasing field and many upcoming hills without food and energy levels starting to drop. This is probably starting to sound way to dramatic, but then the rain started to come down in buckets with lightening and thunder. I heard there was a tornado watch and was ready to jump into the lead car up ahead but couldn’t catch the thing. Trying to catch that car and jump in got me moving a bit faster I think, but the bastard kept going faster and offered no relief :-)

Eventually the rain slowed and so did I. The officials had me stop at a metal bridge and walk across at mile 70 and that’s when I was caught by a small lead group (Badger unfortunately wasn’t in it) but the leader and KOM guy were there (about 6 or 7 guys I think). Good friends Bill Thompson and Monte Frank were also there and provided me with a bit of food which saved me. We rolled along together until a slight acceleration on the final climb gapped me from the rest. We were only about 1 mile from the finish and I limited my loses and rolled in about 1 minute back enough to move up to 4th place in GC overall as well as winning both the Sprinter and KOM Jerseys. Kudos to Jonny Bold for winning the race and retaining the Yellow Jersey, but but our taking away 2 out of the 3 competition jerseys was not too bad.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and excuse me for all this talk about me, me, me.

Ed

Comments

[rickTT]

Great race Ed!