guiltypleasure

sunday was the "ranier roubaix". basically a 6 mile race over brilliant but decaying and undulating road through the fourest to 4 mile circuit: 2 miles flat gravel road with plenty of big rocks and loose gravel between the tire lanes and 2 miles of pavement. 12 laps of that loop and then ride back 6 miles to the finish.

i have mixed feelings about this race format. on the plus side, it is a very challenging race. the gravel section was very hard and required skilled riding. over the day we continuously shed riders who couldn't hang on. the racing to and from the loop was fast and challenging as well.

on the other hand success in this race depended a lot on luck. rob campbell was taken out by a crash which split the field. woe to the guys behind that crash who were split off and woe to rob who lost all chance of a result that day (a good chance, i think). of course, it can be argued that a rider must ride at the front to avoid such problems (such as i did, never leaving the front 10 riders). but i would say that this is just the problem. there were only two good places to ride through the gravel so there just wasn't space for everybody to be safe. the fight for those precious few safe spots was probably a major contributor to the crash. flats also ended the competition for many riders. even with new tires, flats can happen as a matter of pure luck. and the race is hard on equipment. my sweet easton/velomax wheels took the beating with nary a complaint but my saddle broke. split the plastic shell. but believe me, it hurt me more than it hurt the saddle. ugh.

i imagine that the hosting team was frustrated by the weak turnout. clearly, road racers in washington don't want to do races that feature extensive racing off road. a stage race in montana found the same thing. for better or worse, that's just the reality of the market.

anyway, the race the circuit was fast and agressive. i'm sure we lost a few on the way out. first time through the gravel was a crash, as i mentioned. i heard that rob went down and i asked the other riders if we were going to wait a bit for him. by the sound of it he went down pretty hard so the other racers weren't keen on waiting. after that it was move after move. i had a brilliant team there with devin and van horn alternating making moves off the front and making other teams chase. that made the middle half rather easy for me. i also figured out how to ride it and stopped wasting as much energy. eventually i was off the front with two race favorites from the only teams well represented in the remaining 10-15 riders in the front group of the race. i thought for sure we'd be the winning group. but a rider from recycled chased us down. ian and johnny sundt countered and made the winning move with 3-4 laps to go. the recycled rider missed that again so he continued chasing. my group of 5 or so riders (and a few guys who were lapped but were riding with us for some reason) raced to the finish. there were two guys from the local team, which had me worried. they knew the road (and potholes!) and with teamwork were likely to work us over. we held it together though (and managed to not crash) and i took the group sprint for 3rd. ian won, so first and third on the day.

in the washington cup i extended my lead over emde but sunt made some serious in roads with two second place finishes. ian however made up almost all of the ground to be only 5 points behind. that's fine. as long as we take first and second, i'll be happy.

for me efforts i look home $10 and a six pack of beer. $10 for third place. went straight to tony for gas money.