waterrockets
08-01-07, 03:20 PM
Last night in the Tuesday Nighter, I had a fun strategic move that nearly worked ;)
Short story: I dropped back from my break, then attacked right away when the pack settled.
I had joined a break of 5 that looked promising, but we were only given a small gap -- 75m. I attacked this group and one guy went with me. Everyone else went back to the pack.
This guy wasn't taking real pulls, and they were short, so I "gently" attacked him, to get him to sh*t or get off the pot. He decided to sh*t, got on my wheel and started taking turns.
We had about 200m, when the pack really dialed it up and were reeling us in fast, in spite of our cooperation.
I decided that just a few guys in the pack were doing all the work, and they must be tired. We kept the pressure on, and when they got to w/in 50m, I sat up and left the other guy out front. He kept going to see if he could stay off past the crest of a hill to avoid the acceleration back into the pack on a climb.
When I got back to the pack, it was clear that the front guys were gassed. The pace went way down. I had a nice 30s of recovery on the way back, so I jumped in at 5th wheel and recovered for another 30s. Then I attacked HARD.
I heard a bunch of barks: "He's going again!" "Up! Up! on the left!" but nobody actually wanted to do any work, and I was off again. It was really really hard to go then, but it was simply the best time.
I re-caught my breakaway partner, warning him that I was coming, and he hopped on. Now we were gone.
We stayed off until the last mile. He didn't have enough left to contribute fully, and I couldn't do it on my own. I ended up 4th in the bunch sprint on dead legs.
I was completely dead at the end, and really tired today. It was a great ride.
Short story: I dropped back from my break, then attacked right away when the pack settled.
I had joined a break of 5 that looked promising, but we were only given a small gap -- 75m. I attacked this group and one guy went with me. Everyone else went back to the pack.
This guy wasn't taking real pulls, and they were short, so I "gently" attacked him, to get him to sh*t or get off the pot. He decided to sh*t, got on my wheel and started taking turns.
We had about 200m, when the pack really dialed it up and were reeling us in fast, in spite of our cooperation.
I decided that just a few guys in the pack were doing all the work, and they must be tired. We kept the pressure on, and when they got to w/in 50m, I sat up and left the other guy out front. He kept going to see if he could stay off past the crest of a hill to avoid the acceleration back into the pack on a climb.
When I got back to the pack, it was clear that the front guys were gassed. The pace went way down. I had a nice 30s of recovery on the way back, so I jumped in at 5th wheel and recovered for another 30s. Then I attacked HARD.
I heard a bunch of barks: "He's going again!" "Up! Up! on the left!" but nobody actually wanted to do any work, and I was off again. It was really really hard to go then, but it was simply the best time.
I re-caught my breakaway partner, warning him that I was coming, and he hopped on. Now we were gone.
We stayed off until the last mile. He didn't have enough left to contribute fully, and I couldn't do it on my own. I ended up 4th in the bunch sprint on dead legs.
I was completely dead at the end, and really tired today. It was a great ride.