Patterson Road Race Report from Chris Hawley

Our First Race Ever for the team!

Patterson Early Bird Road Race – 1/23/2010

An update from Patterson Race up Del Puerto Canyon. The day started out wet and rainy. I thought that there would not be many riders as the weather was rough . Approximately 60 riders were there for the 35-45 Cat 4/5 men’s race. They split us into two groups.

The first 20 miles of the canyon are a gradual uphill, followed by the “wall”. The group stayed together as everyone knew the “wall” would splinter the pack. The pace was a reasonable 19-20 miles up the gradual incline. I stayed closed to the front to conserve energy and avoid the yo-yo effect at the back. The pace picked up considerably as we approached the ½ mile before the wall. Then came the sudden 10-15% grade, 2.5 mile torture chamber. I felt good on the climb and passed quite a few folks. We turned around at the top of the wall, and then came my nemesis – the twisty, steep descent with large cliff on the right side. My brakes screamed for mercy and I got passed by a number of insane folks. At the bottom of the descent, with about 19 miles to go, I saw no one. I kept a medium pace until 3 other riders came up from behind. We worked together very well and picked off up a bunch of riders until we were a group of about 10. Unfortunately, only about 4 of us were doing all the work. We were unable to catch the lead group which had about 6-8 riders. The finish is a short, steep uphill and there was a good sprint at the end with our second pack.

The race was quite fun. A good start to a hopefully great year for CoreTechs.


11th place
Chris Hawley
TURLOCK,CA
253470
657
Coretechs Cycling Team

Chris