A New England Masters Cycling Team

I could dismiss this ride as being pure folly but that would discount the fact that it is based on the Brevet style of racing - a self-supported ride where the participants don't know the route and have to follow cue sheets. The race is against the course, not the other riders.

OK, well I don't like that style. To keep a theme going, for $40 I want the roads marked! It would haven't been so bad had the course been more in line with something like the Litchfield Hills ride, where we were on a given road for miles at a time. This course had us making many turns, sometimes several per mile onto sometimes unmarked goat paths. My favorite - right at telephone pole! The "road", which we missed of course, ended up being what looked like a farmers path around his field. Anyway...

The Hills!! - A good thing gone bad. Again the Brevet style is more of the rider against the course, not against other riders. So, if you want a hard "race", make it with lots of hills. With the exception of the first 5 miles (and a section near a river after I had already bailed) there was NO flat road on the course. I'm not kidding. It was up or it was down. I like hills. I often can be near the front at races when there are hills. But for me this was overkill. Many were long and some were incredibly steep. I'm surprised the more recreational type rider would even come to this event. I'm sure some were out there more than 12 hours.

Bike choice was good. I used my cross bike with narrow speedmax type tires. Worked really well. Only lost traction once on a soft section of a very steep dirt road. I had to get off and walk for a little. No problem I need the training for cyclocross. I did need better gearing. 38/27 worked but something smaller would have been better. We hooked up with a guy on a cross bike and he had compact cranks. Looked like he was running a 34/27 and he was spinning while I was mashing at 6 rpm.

So as I hinted at earlier, I bailed on the ride at the 50 mile mark. 50 miles!! Your a wimp Wade!! Oh, OK. I should have said the 5 hour mark!! And it was probably closer to 55 miles. 50 on the cue sheet, 5 extra for all our wrong turns and back tracking. Geoff Sullivan had gone down and was bleeding from knee and had no rear brake. I knew he'd be a good guy to propose the bail-out to. When the ride hit a main road - Rte 112 - we kept going south toward Rte 2. It took us 45 minutes to get back. And it wasn't easy. As we headed south into this village I could see only hills around us. I knew we'd have to climb. Sure enough, it was probably 1.5 miles or so, 10%. We saw riders from the 100K version bombing down the hill.

For me, I wouldn't go back. Or if I did, I'd opt for the 100K version. Still probably a 6+ hour ride. In my opinon, it is one of those rides that you say, "Wow, I'm glad I did it, but once is enough!" I didn't even finish and I'm saying that. That's just me though. Give me a good M35 road race over this type of event any day of the week.

I'd love to see a course up there which inlcudes some of the dirt roads but is more balanced with flat roads. A hard course but not an epic course. I'm sure lots of the NCC guys do rides like that all of the time and know more sane courses.

Ted will design such a ride for the team up his way. I know he's got lots of dirt roads around his place.

Wade

Lined up with 35/45/55 fields combined; probably 80 riders total. Neutral 3 mile start that was, well, neutral. The race started at 1k to go to the finish/feedzone, so we got to see that twice before the finish. At the start, the official said the "wall" was 12 miles in so I knew that the rollers, and the 3-step main climb were not it. A few attacks went off the front, but nothing stuck. The first time up the wall--yes, it really was very steep, with 2 major pitches--I felt good. In fact after riding the first steep pitch in the saddle, I poked at my shift lever and found out I still had the 25 left in reserve! Sweet! I hit that gear about 25 yards from the top, because I was pretty near the front and was trying to save energy. Things were strung out cresting the hill, and the 8-10 guys in front of me seemed to be "right there" so I eased up assuming everything would come back together. I knew Ed was in the group with Funk, Officer and Bill T. and a couple others so I saw no reason to close the gap. After the S-turns and the sharp right-hander back onto Rt. 143, they were just ahead of the remnants of the field, maybe 5 sec. up the road and Wade said "Ed's up there" so...I interpreted that to mean field shutdown mode was the way to go. And shut it down we did. Sumner (CBRC) and Wiejak (Verge) also had teammates helping Wade, Matt and I, and we didn't so much shut things down as just ride near the front and jump on any solo flyers. A few serious attacks went--many by Steve Roszko, who must have attacked a dozen times the rest of the race. But...can you say marked man? Steve wasn't going anywhere alone. Wade was up the road with Steve at one point with a decent gap.

By the beginning of lap 2, it seemed pretty certain the break was gone although Wade and I both thought we caught a glimpse of them at one point. It then became a race within a race. Just before the main 3-step climb Wade told me he was going to try something, and I was thinking the same thing so I thought I'd just counter if it didn't work. He went, got a small gap, was caught half way up the climb, so I went on the last steep pitch, got a small gap, and was caught at the top. Oh well, you can't win if you don't play. The wall was nasty the second time, and my legs really felt it but I think I was in the majority on that one and we probably shed a few more guys. When we rolled out on 143 again, a CRCA guy went solo (another multi-attack dude) and I was right at the front, so I decided to just go ahead and make the worst textbook move you can and roll/attack from the front. It worked and a 3rd guy bridged up to us but that really went nowhere. The CRCA guy went again, and held a pretty good gap for awhile but the headwind was nasty on the back side of the course.

After the last turn onto 301 with about 6 miles to go, I tried to cover the front as much as I could, knowing Wade and Matt had a better chance at the finish. I jumped on Roszko once, and one other guy once, and then Steve went again and Matt covered and it seemed like it might be the move. Steve was caught but Matt managed to hold of most of the charging field. The last 1k was deceiving with one sharp rise and another little rise to the line. I tried not to let up, and passed many guys, finishing right at the tail of the exploded field.

Ed took second and I'd say the day was a great day of teamwork. Too bad the payout was a water bottle and t-shirt. The race was very reminiscent of Tokeneke and Wachusset last year. Serious break goes up the road, and we do our job at the back without questions, then have some fun in the last lap. What more can you ask for? Paul had bad legs and Gary an untimely flat, but the 3 of us did the job anyway. I like the course a lot; I hope the race stays around for a few years. Too bad the season's over pretty much for me though. Wait 'til next year, as they say.

Go to the Track! There all day. Raced 3 times for a total of about 20 minutes. The rest of the time you just sit around. We didn't bring a trainer - big mistake. Racing the track with no warm-up is not the way to go.

I did the Kilo. A 3 K Pusuit and a Points Race. The bike is borrowed from the folks at the Kissena Velodrome. Thanks. Not really dialed in fit wise but it worked. Fixed gear of course. Think. Pedal. Pedal. Pedal! No brakes. Ok, finish coming. Keep pedaling. Keep pedaling!

Wade

This is the bulk of my training these days.

Monson Race went pretty well for us. Matt got in the first break which went immediately after the short neutral section. Their max lead was about a minute. Too bad the roads in the first 10 miles of that race are wide open and have long lines of sight. Jonny Bold in his return to racing bridged and that caused alarm bells and the chase picked up. Before that the chase was moderate with 3 or 4 huge accelerations caused by Bold, Ruiz and Swinand. I think we used the radios well during this period. Telling Matt what was what with him telling us what was going on up there. I felt fine but did not move up enough before the big climb. I made up a lot of ground on the first steep section but that only put me in the top 30 at best. This of course is where the field split. I didn't have the gas to close the gap even though I tried like hell and was yelling at others to get their asses in gear. I get very frustrated in chase groups when work isn't done and the field is right there in front of us. A couple of guys in our "group" did make the bridge but Arlen Paul and I did not. I knew once we hit the last roller and the course turned downward for good we would be toast. And we were. Our group of 7 worked well and I felt very good. I was pissed that I couldn't be up in the front group. Back to the race: A solo Union rider went shortly after Matt's group was caught and Swinand bridge to him solo a few miles before the climb. I guess they stayed away. Ed did great to get 5th. And Matt rode strong to make the front group - he was smart and started the climb near the front. I attacked our group and brought Pauly and John Interlandi to the line. Paul nipped me, we both dropped Big John. - Wade