Conquer the Canyons – Day 2
Posted on April 24, 2007
RR: When I drove down the hill I thought I was going to get murdered. Driving up seemed a bit nicer. First lap was OK. Right after the finish line on the small riser Damien dropped his chain. I stopped to help him get back to the pack. I did what I could but holy shit, I was cooked. Done
So I decided to ride it at my own pace. Got mixed up with some masters and we tagged along some more straggling 3′s. Our group grew. It got strung out when we hit the climb and I was actually surprised that the masters guys were not murderign us on the hill. I guess they had had their share of suffering in their first 2 laps. Well, on the third time up the hill they dropped me and TJ. We chased for about 4 miles and we chased HARD. It was starting to rain and getting miserable (sp?).
We latched back on and did not work form there. I saw Damien sitting on the side of the road. He hopped back in. He had dropped his chain 2 more times!!!!! Campy… Well he got back in and by now we were maybe 15 strong…3′s and masters. The next lap was the master’s last lap and on the hill they went. No sense in going with them.
On the final lap around, us, the 3′s caught up to more riders and we must have had 15 guys or so, not sure, cant remember. Well, I decided to take a flier and fortunately Damien came with me. I start drilling it and we passed the Pro breakaway…they were going pretty slow, I was surprised. Well, we passed them and we got a bit mixed up, the moto referee was not happy and gave both of us a warning. Its too bad cause these guys were not going fast at all and we could not pass them. With the effort that I was putting in I did not want to have the 3′s catch back onto Damien and I.
So I kept drilling it and finally the Cat 1 guys start moving again. On the climb they were gone and I was preparing myself for it. Pacing it up so that I could drill it on the rolling parts. I kept looking back and I could not see the chasing group. They must have had 17 guys or so. We passed another small group of 3′s right after the start line.
Honestly, the gap was so big and I was pretty happy about it. BUT, as I am cresting the hill my tire gets cut….side to side. THAT SUCKED! I told Damien to drill it. I sat on the side of the road, waited a couple of minutes and here they came…the group that we were trying to loose. They were now working and I knew that if Damien would have let the pace slwo down, he would have been caught. It’s all I cared about, for him to put time into these guys.
It happened, 1 minute. A guy offered me a wheel after I was sittign down for 10 minutes. I managed to finish the race adn ahead of one guy. How pathetic is that! Oh well, happy I finished.
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