Henleyville Race Report-Nick

Race: Henleyville RR
Category: P12
Place: 8th (Won the bunch kick)
Who: Me, all by my lonesome.

Henleyville is really, really far north. Friday: 6.5 hours up 101 to the Bay Area (the 101 was CLOSED; diverted traffic and everything b/c of an accident. Fun) Saturday: another 2.5 up 5. Up at 4am to make a 8am start. Yuck.

Course is a pretty damn flat 18 mile circuit raced four times. The break of the day rolled ~a kilometer into the race. I missed it. I must have been picking my nose. Who attacks a mile into a 72 mile race? That's just rude.

Being a late season race, with many people's form--and, more importantly, motivation--on the wane, I looked around to find about 3-4 guys who were willing to chase... the six guys off the front. Not good numbers when there were some motors up the road. The next three laps were a fine balancing act of trying to maximize the speed of the pack while hurting myself the least. It was more work than I wanted to do, but sometimes you ain't got any other options.

With a half lap to go we finally reeled in the break, thus initiating the most chaotic, stop-and-go, illogical finale to a race I have ever witnessed. We slowed to 14 mph. Flurry of attacks, covers, counters which are neutralized and pulls which leave people dangling off the front. I had been carefully studying the opposition but the relative strength of riders seemed to have no bearing on how the group responded to their attacks. Tricky, tricky, tricky...

...Especially when Ihaven't finished a road race since February (overuse injury, since resolved, thankfully) and at this point mylegs aren't exactly eager to cover everything that moves. I decided to key off of the largest, most active team in the race, Webcor Builders. They had 4-5 guys in the group, and i figured it was unlikely we'd see something roll without them. I was wrong. There went 7 guys. No response. And there goes the race.

Rolling into the line, there was a hesitation at ~250 meters, and I came from behind with enough momentum to surprise the field for 8th. Despite some tactical errors, it was a great return to road racing after a season in crit-slut purgatory and hopefully the beginning of a long period of growth.

-Nick