Written By Mark Johnson:
45+ 1/2/3 (Mark 1st, Tom Rice 2nd and Andrew Adelman 3rd)
Henlyville Road Race 2014
The plan was to get an early start to beat the traffic up
to Henleyville, but those plans were immediately scrubbed because of some yahoo
starting a fire in a Chicago airport.
Nevertheless, Rick managed to get back only a couple hours behind
schedule, and Daryoush, Franco, Andrew,
and I met at his house to assemble his rack (yes he has a big rack to go
with his big truck!) and start on our adventure.
According to Andrew, last year they left at 2 and hit a
ton of traffic and he vowed never to leave that late again, so at 1:45, we were
sure to beat the traffic… yeah…not really!
Of course, Rick drove after
having got up around 1am PDT, and the rest of us relaxed (Rick, thanks again
for driving!) About 4 hours later we
checked into the hotel, and headed over to Tom and Kate’s where we met Mike and
Mark (who flew) at Tom’s really nice RV for a pre-race dinner of coach approved
wine and a couple huge slabs of tri-tip - wow that was some good food…
Next morning I met Daryoush at breakfast and afterward we
walked to Starbucks next door where he ordered a 4 shot espresso, and not
wanting to be appear weak, I got the same.
Ready to go!
All seemed good as we’re leaving reg, when we ran into
Dirk H. who had just driven up that morning (god knows when he got up) looking a little disheveled. I made the comment “So happy to see you
Dirk... Not!!” I don’t know if he felt sorry for us for showing
up like that but in any case, he registered for the 35+ race (which if I have
to be honest is the only way we had a chance to sweep the podium)
Daryoush had trouble with getting air in his rear tire
but that turned out to be the least of his mechanical issues that day. He ended up having to stop to repair his
brakes, but still ended up finishing.
Anyway, we rolled off together with the 3 35+ riders and
2 women p12 and the first few miles seemed like it might be a civilized ride,
but it didn’t last. Attacks came fast
and furious, but with 5 CoreTechs, we managed to cover all the breaks with 1 or
2 riders at least. Andrew had a bit of a
long one, and I recall (I’m sure Rick can correct me here) right afterward Dirk
launched a huge attack which had everyone on the rivet trying to catch on to
the end of the race before it was over.
All the CoreTechs hung on, and I’m not sure, but it
seemed like we may have shelled a couple riders at that point. After we reeled in Dirk, there may have been
a few more small attempts, but things were really slowing just before the
completion of lap 1 when Andrew said “Mark, you should go”. So, I went.
Getting away was not hard, but keeping up a fast pace was draining me
and I was worried since there was more than 50mi left to go. I looked back every half mile or so not
seeing anyone very close, but after about 3-4 miles(?) I looked back and Dirk
was right on my wheel, with Andrew, Tom, and 3 other guys.
At first the 7 of us weren’t working very well, but I saw
Andrew go to the back and talk some sense into Dirk, and after that it was
really smooth and fast. We passed the 4s
saying hi to Franco on the way, and a group of women. It was probably the smoothest break I’ve been
in and for the next 2 laps everyone did their part though we could see the non
CoreTechs guys were starting to struggle.
In fact one guy just finally admitted he couldn’t help, and wouldn’t
contest the sprint.
It remained that way until about 2 miles from the
finish. Once again Andrew made the call
and told me that I should go with Tom, so I gave it a dig, not too hard, and
very quickly Tom caught and passed me and I have to give lot more to get on his
wheel. After the initial surge we
looked back and had a nice gap, and both of us were going full gas. Just before we reached the finish hill our
good buddy Dirk caught us, and when I pulled over to give him the chance to
lead out, he took off, and I tried to chase, but didn’t have nearly enough to
stay on his wheel.
I finished maybe 200m behind Dirk (who won the 35+ field
of 3) and I’m guessing about 100m ahead of Tom, not exactly sure, but with a
big smile on my face! My first win in
45+ 1/2/3 — in fact my first top 10 finish!
Andrew out sprinted the rest to get 3rd.
Thanks again to Andrew, Tom, and the whole team. Great
teamwork, great tactics, great fun!
— Mark
P.S. Rick feel
free to fill in all that I forgot/missed.
