Dunnigan Hills RR 35+ 1/2/3-Written by Andrew A.

Dunnigan Hills RR 35+ Cat 1/2/3
Teammates: Christian, John Pauley, John Wilde, Keith, Scott Fairman
88 miles or so with 42 in the group

This was a super fun race, maybe the most fun race I have done. It was one of the first races that we really used tactics. Maybe some good, some not so good, but we raced as a team and that made it exciting and entertaining. After riding through 'middle of nowhere' farm land for 88 miles, we needed the entertainment. Here is how it enfolded:

We are the second biggest team in the race with six riders. Folsom/Mercedes had seven. Race starts and one mile into the race, Keith rolls up next to me and says, "I am going to go for it." "Uh, Ok" was about all I could say. I was thinking, "Are you fricken crazy? We have 87 miles to go." But, Keith has been around the block in bike races and is a Cat 1 for a reason, so who am I to argue. I follow him up to the front of our 42 strong group and off he goes. One other rider decides to go with him. Well, now CoreTechs has a rider in the break and I figure our job is to give Keith as much space as possible. It was also our job to "let" a few other riders try to bridge so he had some people to work with for the next 80+ miles.

Christian, myself, John Pauley and John Wilde, and Scott go to the front to "control" the race. This was a load of fun. We road at an easy pace. When someone would attack we would let them go. When more than two went, we would send one of us to chase and just sit on that small groups wheel. I must have jumped on six or seven break attempts. You could really tell we were frustrating the hell out of the pack. I had one rider turn and yell at me "why are you chasing me and not him?" as he pointed to another rider. I had to explain he had two guys with him and the other guy was solo. We wanted solo riders to bridge… up to a point. This lasted for a good 40 miles. The pack was getting more and more frustrated since we really were not allowing anything that we did not want to go, go. I had thought Scott was in front of me and a group of 7 or so took off. I yelled at "Scott" (it turns out it was not Scott, but I thought it was!) to latch on and he did. As I watched him latch on, I eased off the pace and gave that group room to escape. That group got away, but we were good as we had Keith up the road and who I thought was Scott in the second break.

On a long straight away, a Thirsty Bear rider turned to yell at a Taleo rider for not pulling through. As he turned to yell, he drifted left and touched wheels with the rider next to him. We were going about 24mph or so and he just face planted. Not pretty. Turns out Scott was right behind him and went over him and his own bars too. He was fine, but the Thirsty Bear rider was on the ground moaning in pain. With no support vehicles, Scott did the right thing and stayed with that down rider and was able to get a call into 911. Since the crash happened just next to me, I was in front of it quickly with a group of 10 or so. We slowed up but kept riding.

About a half mile later, another break tries to go. Five guys go and I latch on to make sure we have a rider represented. A Lombardi rider starts yelling at me to pull through, but I explain the situation. I told him if we get clear of the pack, I will work with the break to stay away, however if the front group comes in sight, I will back off and not help. He agrees and we have peace and harmony in my break. We rotate pretty well for the next 30 miles and are clear of the main group but no front pack in sight. With about 10 miles to go we spot Keith's group. I sit on the back of the chase don’t help any longer.

The finish approaches and we are about 500 meters back from the front group. We can see them on the finish stretch before the final left turn. I can't help them catch since I think we have two riders up there, so I just sit on and watch. The other guys are fairly fried at this point and don’t do much. We make the left and there is 400 meters to the finish. A Taleo rider who did not pull in the break (he said he had a rider ahead too) jumped the group and got away. The rest of us sprinted to the line. I ended up 11th overall and felt great. Turns out Keith got 4th place and if there was a 'most aggressive' award would have won that as well. Was a whole lot of fun playing games and using some team tactics.

The whole team helped in this and that is what made it so fun. Best 11th place I ever got!