The first road of the season started with a clear cold morning, quite picturesque imagery with Amish farms and the horse and buggies going about their morning duties .... As I stepped out of the car the first thing that came to mind was man that Wind is going to blow me over... Lets just say it made for an extremely challenging, cold and all around hard day. I was surprised to see how many teams showed up for the race, and many were from out of state. The course was 5.2 miles of mostly flat, wind swept fields with 2 minor hills... Our strategy in races like this is generally stay up front for the first few laps and then try to push the pace and break up the pack. Well I think every team had that idea as the whistle blew, the race took off and the pace hardly let up.
Iron Hill WCCC - Results
Positive points from our racing are we all rode hard and no one went down; that's definitely positive. Our young riders like Bryan Verduer showed great strength and good form especially for his first road race. A special mention to Jeff Salvitti(Team Alliance) who rode a perfect race and finished a strong 2nd in the Cat 4/5. Results for Strasburg were positive, but I personally missed my goal of a top 10 finish in the 4/5. As I thought back about how the race unfolded, my main regret was how unaggressive I was about moving up through the pack on the 3rd lap. So here's what I'd like to work on for the next race:
Things to work on...Tatics?
- Keep up at the front especially with strong cross winds... But don't waste energy trying to lead the race.
- If someone goes flying past you heading for the front grab on and take the free ride..
- Communicate with my teammates so that we can work together. This was difficult given the conditions
- Don't wait until the last 1km to try move up thru the pack... It's too hard
- Be more aggressive and move up thru the pack... To win the race you gotta be willing to lose( para-phrased from Kevin K. and several other wise sources...).
