Modesto Road Race Report: 5/16/10

Modesto Road Race Report:

Team Members Present: John Pauley, Chris Scheetz, Jon Hallam, Gregg Shores, Chris Hawley and myself (Andrew Adelman)

Course Description: This is a flat course. There is zero climbing. This is the anti-Laura course. There is many turns though and sometimes wind. You do five or six laps, depending on your Cat. Each lap is about 9 miles. My race did 6 laps.

5:40am JP, Scheetz, Hallam and myself meet up…this is early. We pile in my car and drive the hour and 15 minutes to Salida (about 10 miles before Modesto). After gearing up and doing an easy 20 minute spin warm up, Hallam and Hawley get going in the 35+ Cat 5 group. Seems they both finished in the pack. They may have stories to tell about their race, but I leave that to them. Congratulations to Hallam for his first road race ever. Finishing in the pack is hard for the first race, so good stuff.

Next group to go off is the 35+ Cat 4's. We had a full field of 75 riders. CoreTechs had JP, Scheetz and myself. Fun to see a couple allies in the field. Of course, Wells Fargo, Talleo and Tri Valley all have 10+ guys per team in the race. I can tell you that the Cat 4's are not tacticians. You would think with that many guys on a team, one of them would get some action going. Say, send a few off the front and leave a few in front to block. Or perhaps have three or four guys hammer the pace and thin the field…but nope. 30 plus guys from three teams and they did nothing. So, that left the full 75 strong field taking turns together all bunched up at 25 mph. That led to some excitement (Good thing you were not there Michael, you may have taken out half the field :). I did my best to stay in the top 20 so as not to feel the yo-yo effect in each turn that is so prevalent at the back. After about two laps, I saw a streak of blue come up my left and saw Scheetz ride out in front of the field. I think another joined him but their break only got about 25 meters in front and then hung there for a bit. I was getting a bit board so figured I would go out next and try something. I went off with three others. We maybe got 30 meters in front before two of the four guys start to argue about pulling through. Soon enough, we were back in the field.

At one point we went through the finish line and heard a bell ringing. I asked the guy next to me if this was a bell lap but he said he did not know. I than heard another guy behind me talking about a Prime in the race. So, being the smart guy I am, I figured this was a prime lap. When we got to the line the next time around I went for the line. I won…but of course, there was no prime and people were looking at me like what the f… are you doing? So, back in line and around we go.

Final lap is here. During the drive out JP had told me that you need to be in the top 10 in taking the final turn to have a shot. So I did my best to stay there. There was a lot of pushing and cussing going on from guys trying to hold their spots. Honestly this is a bit sketchy at 25+ mph but I did my best to hold my spot and deny others from cutting in. We hit the hard left and with about 600 meters to go the guys in front started a full on sprint. I was caught a bit off guard as I expected them to start the sprint much closer to the line. Regardless, I jumped and went pretty hard. In the end I held my spot and finished 7th.

On the drive back, JP told us his tale. Not sure I can do it justice. He said he was caught behind a crash. Said a few guys went off roading and did not fair well. He and four or so guys chased the main pack, but with four against 40 or so, that is a tough ask. He had to content himself with a sprint within his group and so made the most of it, handily beating out the others.

Scheetz finished not to far behind me in the main field. I mentioned his one time out front, but he actually went out there on his own maybe three or four times trying to liven things up. He did a good job getting the groups pace up.

Finally, Gregg raced alone in the E5 race. Gregg is a 57 year old guy racing with the under 35 year olds. That is tough! He hung in and hung on though to finish the race. Once he gets in with the 55+ Age Group, he is going to be scary. We all finished and no crashes. A good day and a whole lot of fun.

August is coming up and we have two more key races that month. Dunnigan hills sign up will open on line on June 1st. So, keep it in mind. It is a really fun race (rolling hills but no climbs to fear) and it fills very quickly.