A week ago I headed up to Doylestown, PA for my last road race of the season, the Bucks County Classic. This would be my first big time race with a filled Pro/1 field. The course was 100 miles from Doylestown to New Hope with 6 laps of a ~14 mile loop in the middle and almost 7,000 ft. of climbing. Snaking through the countryside of PA through 2 covered bridges and along the Delaware River it was truly an awesome course. As I believe these posts can be boring a cliff notes version is provided at the end for those less intrigued about all the little details.
The racing was hard and fast out of the gate and I hung out near the front to minimize difficulty. In the past a break has rolled early and stayed away so I was fairly active trying to monitor what teams were represented up the road and see if I couldn't plant myself in the right break. Nothing got away and the 2nd time up the KOM hill I was a little (lot) gassed and found myself middle of the group, I didn’t worry relaxed up the hill and floated toward the back. By the time I got to the top a gap had formed and boom I was already dropped from my first UCI race. That was upsetting as I was sure we wouldn’t catch back on and it was a silly mistake, I was taking the hill too conservative. I sure didn't think finishing was going to be a problem! That turned my lap of intended recovery into a hard charging chase back to the group. About ¾ of a lap later we made it and I released a huge sigh of relief. At that point I was definitely gassed and sat in the group licking my wounds. My teammate Tim Rugg had grabbed the first Sprint points so I was called up on lap 3 to attack with about 1K to the Sprint line to draw anyone out and allow him to pick up more points. The plan worked great and Tim bridged up to myself and Jake Tremblay from Kelly and we ate up all the points and guaranteed Tim a jersey if he just finished. He made it closer than I would have preferred.
We were given a huge leash immediately and with a 30 second lead we kept pushing to see if we could get Jake the KOM points about 1/3 of a lap ahead. Unfortunately I was still feeling the effects of my early efforts and we got to the bottom of the hill with a slim 10-second lead, which vanished pretty quickly. I sat in for the 4th lap and recovered as people were clearing getting tired and the pace eased. Up the KOM climb on to the 5th lap I got a flat. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and had quite possibly the slowest/worst wheel swap of all time. First I pulled off to the left, wrong, so I waddled over in my cycling shoes to the other side praying a team car wouldn't run me over. Neutral support found me and I began to swap out the wheels. It was sad, I did not help the poor guy, eventually I got my wheel, he gave me an awesome push (only thing I did right was let him push me) and off I went. "Cool, now I’ll just snake up through the cars like they do in the tour," I though, "no problem." WONG. It is not that easy. Cars are going everywhere, the group is cruising along at 30 mph, the feed zone is a complete mess of cars so I had to slow down and weave through the cars only to watch all the cars fly back past me as they left the feed zone. Eventually after another ½ lap of work I got back to the group. Somewhere in that time the break went and I saw the board state :45s. Well, can't do much about that. The break stuck it to the line. Oh well.
The final lap was uneventful except for the rain that had been holding off all morning came down all at once. It was absolutely pouring. As the race made its way into the final segment into New Hope I was feeling great and finally recovered, plus the group was definitely tired and only about 40 guys remained (of 185). I thought the finish was relatively flat so I was active and almost certain I could be top 20 or top 10 if things played out right. I knew I could get in a small group if they got away in the last 10K. Unfortunately the finishing segment was not flat and included the largest hill on the course. I went from sitting top 5 with teams like UHC, Optum, and Jamis surrounding me to sitting in the back 5 just holding on. So, this is a reminder to do your homework before each race. I didn’t, it caused a problem, darn. Right before the top I got unhooked and as I began a daredevil decent in the rain calling on some super mountain bike skills to catch back on to the group the guy in front of me spilled and while I had no problem staying upright my last chance to catch back on was gone. I rode the last 5K in with a group of 10 or so about :30 back of the main group. 32/185 isn’t terrible but man there was a time I thought I was going to really mix it up with the big guns. That’s racing though. It was still a great experience to race with those guys, witness the crashes, get a wheel change, manage being dropped, and rolling up the road from the peloton. It all happened during the race and made for a lot of fun racing. It was hard but not impossible and I can’t wait to get more opportunities to race with guys at this level. For now it’s time to get fat and catch up on all the school work I’ve missed while traveling to races. It has been quite a good summer though, couldn’t be much happier with how it all turned out. Thanks for following along.
Cliff Notes
- Try to get in early break
- Gapped on KOM climb lap 2, chase back on. Hard. Tired.
- Help teammate win Sprint Jersey.
- Recover
- Flat, chase back on. Not as easy as it looks on TV
- Break goes.
- Last lap, feeling good, mixing it up
- Hill, didn't know it was there, get dropped
- Crash ahead of me, all hope lost to catch back on
- Only 50/185 survive, I was 32nd
Keep Those Pedals Spinning,
Till Collegiate Mountain Season,
BSlow