Jiminy Peak Road Race - who's going....

[GuitarWizard]

Alright....just curious as to who will be there, since it appears we have quite a few people in this forum who race in the Northeast....

I be in the Cat 4/5 Open race...

I have a feeling that the last turn (onto Brodie Mtn. Road) after the short downhill section is going to be a bit sketchy, if the pack hasn't shattered apart by that point on the 7 mile false flat.

I think this is going to be a really hard race.

[TheKillerPenguin]

I went, I saw, I didn't conquer.

Cat3 race was smooth as silk, 0 crashes, no stop and go BS. Weather was beaaautiful. I think we did 56mi, and from what I've been told avg'd 25mph. We big ringed the Jiminy Peak climb every time we went over it.

The Jiminy Peak climb wasn't long enough for my liking, at about a mile in length its more of a power climb than anything. I lead the pack up on lap1. Lap2 I sat in. For the finish my legs were pretty fried and I came in around 25th I'd wager.

On why my legs were fried: I couldn't afford to buy any gels yesterday (yea, that's right, I couldn't even afford that!!!), and they're my bread and butter in these kinds of races. Bars make me a little queasy, so while I had 3 bars with me I only ate half of one during the whole race. And, I only drank half a bottle worth of water. In short, I am dumb.

I know I've got the legs to hurt the 3's, now what I gotta work on is keeping myself properly fueled up! I'm also still building, I'm not planning on peak form coming until July.

edit: here's a routeslip of the loop. Cat3's did it 3 times, and it ended at the top of that peak. http://www.routeslip.com/routes/37265

[GuitarWizard]

Yeah...I pre-rode the route a few weeks back, didn't seem too hilly, but the false flat sucked a lot.

Unfortunately I didn't race. Woke up and found myself to be a bit on the dehydrated side. Actually....pretty damn dehydrated; not quite sure how that happened. At any rate....my back is also all messed up now, so I can't even ride right now if I wanted to. Oh well..hopefully it heals up soon. Will be signing up for the Sunapee RR once I get a handle on how the weather will pan out (my buddy said it can sometimes be kinda ****ty for that one).

[baiskeli]

Just a note. I went for this and I snapped some random photos (see the other thread).
It was great. I was perched on the hill before the finish

[popdelusions]

I went, and also failed to get a result, though I had a good time (except for when the official stopped our field to shame us into naming a rider who had thrown a water bottle...very 3rd grade, and not too great on the legs). Sort of a case of gambling and losing...

Anyway, after it became clear that our field was not going to break up, and having scoped things out on the first couple of laps (the 4s did 3 laps as well) I decided that it would be a good idea to attack through the second right-hand turn, about 12-13 kilometers from the finish, which seemed the only place to break things up (that turn is followed by a long curve leading into the uphill section of the course and the false flat, so it looked like it might be possible to jump and get out of sight). I figured I could either get away with a couple of like-minded hammerheads or string it out so my two teammates (one sort of a powerhouse, the other a climber with a pretty good sprint) had a better shot in the uphill fracas to come.

So a couple of kilometers out from that corner one of the Jonathan Adler riders attacked and got a little gap. The field let him dangle a bit, then let him go through the corner. I tried to raise some interest in getting away among the other guys I felt could stick a breakaway, and got some maybes. Once he was around the bend I jumped hard, and bridged up to him. I pulled through, asked whether he had anything left; he said he'd give it a shot. I put in a really hard pull, he responded in kind, pulled again, and we looked back to see nobody. And after my next pull I looked back to see that I was alone...

I was a little unsure of whether or not I could hold them off for 12 kilometers, but figured I was committed anyway and decided to give it my all, so I grabbed my brake cables, put my head down, and kept it rolling as fast as I could through the first gradual climb and the false flat section. After about 10 minutes a group of 4 riders (including 1 of the guys I'd tried to coax into going away in the first place) bridged up to me, but they'd waited too long and were cooked by the time they caught me. I rotated through once with them, but figured I had a better chance on my own and rode away from them. Perhaps a mistake, but they weren't that organized and it didn't seem like we had time to get it together.


I hit the foot of the first climb in the finishing stretch alone, but as I got halfway up the steep section I started to hear the pack closing in behind, and I finally got caught towards the top of the climb, about a k or so from the finish. My guys had pretty good position, and took 6th and 16th place. Not too shoddy, and no regrets.

[ElJamoquio]

I couldn't afford to buy any gels yesterday

I've checked donategelstothepenguin.com, I get site not found.

[GuitarWizard]

Just a note. I went for this and I snapped some random photos (see the other thread).
It was great. I was perched on the hill before the finish

What other thread?

[baiskeli]

What other thread?
http://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=294575

[TheKillerPenguin]

very nice pics!

[TheKillerPenguin]

I've checked donategelstothepenguin.com, I get site not found.
I couldn't afford to buy the domain name :(

[Coppi51]

http://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=294575

Thanks for taking the pics...I was in a couple :)

[TheKillerPenguin]

So according to bikereg, we (cat3's) did 56mi in 2:12:41, which is about 25.4mph avg. w/ 3000ft of climbing. Damn son!

Also, I finished 35th. I'll take it. This weekend I'm gonna tear some legs off :D

[baiskeli]

Thanks for taking the pics...I was in a couple :)
Cool :)

If you want them let me know and I will just place the full-size images (about 3-4 megs each) up on my web server and you can download them.