4/11/11

Roubaix re-cap

It was a Great day for the Roubaix and I would have to say it was by far the best course Jim has yet designed and the most riders too at 25. We rolled out sharply at 11:00 am and once we hit the first sector of gravel / dirt the race was on. We were in full race pace with guys launching attacks and taking strong pulls at the front and actually picking up the pace in the bad sections. It was more than I expected and I thought that if this keeps up we're going to make fast work of this course. I looked down at my computer at one point in a very rutty dirt gravel section and it read 27 mph, that's not too shabby. We would regroup at stop point sections and as soon as we would get together once again it was gravel road racing at it's best. Jim found a really neat long narrow, gravel climb out in the middle of nowhere, I though coming into this climb that it was going to be pretty neat to hit this climb at a reasonable pace and enjoy the scenery......wrong! Emilio Poggio hit the front and drilled it and from there it was a full on attack to the top and once at the top we downshifted and kept the speed high until the next stop point so we could once again regroup. There were several more attacks off the front and some of us that missed the turns had to ride like hell to catch back on the main group. Once recovered we would go again until a break of 5 of us stuck with about six miles left and it was full gas to the end. Three of the five had road bikes and two of us had cross bike and cross gearing. I was one that had a cross bike with cross gearing and spent legs from being one that missed a crucial turn and had to ride hard to catch back on. I got popped out of the break group with about three miles to go and TT'd in solo for 5th. with 700x34 cross tires at between 21-22 mph. Rolling in the parking lot I was spent but very happy with the day, the course and the way we all rode, it was definitely great race training.

Jim once again has did so much work to make this ride happen. He had a six prize raffle afterwards with some nice swag from local businesses. We all sat around for a while had a few cold Belgian beers, ate some fruit and talked about the upcoming Flanders type ride that we're going to have in a few weeks and then left for home. It was a great day and a great ride again all thanks to Jim.

2 comments:

Jim said...

Glad you had a good time but I didn't know it was a race! When did that happen? See you in 2012.

Unknown said...

Are you serious?