April 28, 2008

Zig Zag on the Lake Race Report

Zig Zag was a 90 minute + 5 laps crit race on a 1.7 km loop along the lakeshore bike path.  The course was pretty flat with 2 hairpin corners and a couple “zig-zags”.  Tim L, Dan L, Brian L, Jeff Hansen, Franz and myself were entered in the M1 race.  Unfortunately the officials would not let Jeff race as they said he did not have the right license yet….

  The race started out fast and it was immediately apparent that sitting near the back of the pack was a disaster as each hairpin corner created a long slinky effect whereby anyone not in the first 10 riders would come to almost a standstill.  With that in mind, I spent 10 minutes or so working my way to the front of the pack.  Unfortunately, I got to the front just in time for one of the hairpin turns and in 3rd wheel behind a Dornello’s rider and Dan who had just made a short attack.  Since this corner was one that Dan had suggested earlier was a good place to attack, and since Dan saw me right behind him, he gave me the “go blow yourselves up for a while look” and off I went.  I quickly built a 15-20 second gap, but found that nobody wanted to come to the party.  I stayed away for 2 km and then was swamped by the pack as it is hard to ride solo at 40 km/hr+ into a headwind and around tight corners!  

The middle section of the race was uneventful until one of the “zig-zags” took down 3 riders and held up another 10 or so.  Unfortunately Franz and myself were right behind the crash and locked up our brakes and ended up in the grass trying to avoid it.  We chased the pack for 4 km or so with no success and were about to drop out of the race until we realized you get a “free” lap if you are involved in a crash. So we rode cross country to the start/finish, pleaded our case, and were allowed to jump back onto the back of the Peloton as they went by on the next lap.  

Dan, in the meanwhile, had initiated an attack and was joined by 5 other strong riders.  This group made a quick 30 second gap, and the Peloton knew that they were going to stay away as the main teams all had riders in it.  One of the Ontario favorites, Kevin Davis, also had a rider in the break, but decided he wanted to try to bridge.  Unfortunately for him, Tim jumped on his wheel and played watchdog on his small group of 4, making sure they did not bridge up to Dan’s lead group.  

The race stayed that way to the end, with Dan sprinting for 2nd place, and Tim coming through in 7th after politely not sprinting by Kevin at the finish.  Brian ended up 15th in the pack sprint, and Franz DNF’d with about 15 mins left in the race with blown legs from our earlier chase after the crash (thank you Franz for pulling me around the course even though we found out we didn’t need to!).  

I got my chance for glory as the Peloton was given a Prime lap sprint prize with 3 laps to go and I took the sprint on the line (and got a new bike pump for my troubles!).  2 minutes later, with about 5 minutes left in the race, I called it a day….  

The team RACE Pros had another good outing, winning the race and also finishing 4, 5, and 6.  Chris Chambers rode the M2 race and rode well but was caught out of position in the last hairpin and ended up 15th (I think)