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What Tim saw:
Category: Masters 45+
Result: Top ten
My race started at 8:15am which made for an incredibly long day, got back after midnight, but more about that later. First, I'll tell you about Ziggy's race which was right after mine. He got 2nd!!! I didn't see it all, but every time I looked up he was in the top 5, often 2nd. With one or two to go he still held his position and Robin, Chris (or Kris, his SO), were there to see him get a well deserved 2nd! Way to go! I wish I could hold my position in a pack like he did! It was awesome!
Also, awesome was a separate 5 and 4 race. I saw the 5 race. It was only 50 maybe ( I think they had a field limit). It looked pretty safe. I only saw one wreck, the leader on the last lap. It seemed much safer than Burlingame, even though it's a tough course. Love to hear Ziggys account of the race.
In my race I got 9th. Didn't feel real sharp. Pace was quick. My average was still over 26mph after cooling down, so it was probably 26.2 to 26.5, not bad for a bunch of old farts! Really struggled to move up on this one. Often I was with some of the fastest guys and they were in the middle of the pack. Lots of swarming and weirdness. Sometimes it was single line really hard peddling through the corners. My small pedals saved me as the roads are crowned and very EZ to wack your pedals on.
Every time Winkel jumped, everybody went. So one time he jumped, backed off and his teammate and two others went and they made it. Anyway with three to go I was still mid pack, but found a hole and moved way up. After that I fought to stay up at the front. On the second to the last turn a guy in front of me gapped slightly, I forced by him and was at the back of the lead group. I got one more right at the line and ended up ninth again! I was right behind Winkle 6th and Jimenez who go 2nd at Burlingame. No prize no glory, but another top ten. The only time I ever got a top ten at Davis was when the had a 40+ cat race which was perfect for me at the time as I was 41.
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What Ziggy saw:
Category: 4
Result: 2nd
Ok, for all you pessimists and crash predicers, there was one crash in my race. I was in front of it and wasn't involved, but Cristabel (Cris, Cristo, Cristabella, the SO, whatever) said it looked to be only one guy that fell for no aparent reason and went sliding for quite some time.
About my race: I almost missed it because the officials told me they were about 10 minutes behind schedule so I decided to head over about a minute after my race was originally supposed to start. Somehow they had made up seven of those 10 minutes and I just managed to get lined up at the back of the bunch for the start 30 seconds later. Starting at the back of this race is bad. The large number of turns meant lots of breaking and sprinting, so it took some finesse and a bit less than half the race to work my way up to a comfortable position up front.
Once there, I experienced much of the swarming Tim had mentioned and was wondering what I could do to avoid getting stuck in it. Well this is where my lesson for the day came into play. I learned that a successful stay at the front involved not only a bunch of pedaling, but listening and preparation as well. The listening was for hearing the next group of advancing riders coming up on either side and preparing myself to intercept their advance. Preparation was simply pulling off the line of the person or persons in front of me and speeding up just enough to stay next to one of the top few of the advancing pack and staying there until the next turn, at which point I took advantage of the fact that at the front, turns are quite wide and sweeping, and all that was necessary on my part to take a whel was to hit a turn slightly shallower and a bit faster than the guy I wanted to overtake, and voila! It may sound kinda dangerous, but at the front, there is total control so the maneuver was never risky.
So due to the uniqueness of this course, I was able to maintain a comfortable position amongst whichever group was pushing the pace at the time. Coming into the last lap, I had slipped a few spots back, so employing my cool corner trick, I managed to find a nice spot right behind two Body Concept riders. We surprisingly held our order for the last couple of turns, and coming into the last turn I was in third wheel so I requested a slightly bigger gear and dug deeper than I have ever done in a race and managed to sneak by the guy in front of me by about half a bike length. The guy in first got a great jump, and the only way I think it could have been beaten was with a sprint effort starting before the final turn.
Prize for 2nd was $55 and a $5 dinner coupon to a diner I'll probably hit up next time I'm in the area. Oh yeah, and a podium photo shot to mark the occasion. I'll get the photo as soon as the Photocrazy.com guy puts it up for sale. So like I said in my Burlingame email, Davis was my race!
Congrats to Tim for the top ten spot amongst the champs from USPS Masters, and thanks for all the hollering and support.
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