May 21, 2006

Well, it was certainly not a day for the faint hearted. The temperature was 5 degrees or so, the wind was gusting to 70 km/hr and periodically it would rain, sleet or hail…the biggest thanks have to go out to Freddie, Scott, Brad, Hamish and Larry who all stuck around to offer support to the various races going on.

In the Senior 3 race, Larry rode a controlled smart race except for the part when he got blown into a ditch. That was probably not part of his plan…Even with the mishap, he ended up 5th in his division.

This race was a bit of a coming out party for two of our Master C riders Scott Graham and Steve Coulson. Both were able to hang onto the peloton 5 times up the Effingham hill, with Steve finishing 7th with the same time as the 3rd through 7th riders and Scott just falling back on the last lap and finishing 11th.

The Master B race saw the pack stay pretty much together. In Andy Dickison’s first race as a new Team R.A.C.E rider, he was able to finish with the main group in a very impressive 11th spot. Chris Chambers finally conquered Effingham hill and finished a well earned 39th after a couple unfortunate DNF’s over the last few years.

The women’s race saw our new racer Liz Hopkins finish the tough course in her second race ever and finish 7th. She later stated that “she hated Mosport but she loved Niagara”. We still don’t know whether she was referring to the tough rainy race or the time she spent at the farmers market and winery after the race.

The Men’s A race was long and tough which was really what Jeff and I were looking for as we were racing in A for training even though we are B’s – that and we wanted to race with all our new A riders this year who mysteriously went missing on this somewhat gross day (not including Dave Ellis of course who will race the hilliest course in Ontario even when riding with the equivalent extra weight of two bikes on his back versus most of the racers). The race got interesting on the 5th lap or so when 6 riders escaped and got 30 seconds on the field. It did not look like it was coming back and a decision had to be made as to whether we in the pack were going to settle for 7th and higher. After some discussion with Charlie Squires, he, myself, Jeff and two other riders pulled the peloton around the course for about 25 km and finally reeled in the break. During that time, the peloton had been whittled down from around 85 to 40 or so. Over the next lap or two, the field whittled down to 25 or so riders as every attack in the crosswind dropped more riders off the back. With one lap to go, Jeff went hard up the lower hill to hurt everyone’s legs. This allowed 8 riders including myself to get clear on the steep part of the hill. At that point, 5 or 6 attacks occurred in the last lap all of which were covered so it was an 8 rider group coming into the last steep hill sprint. I tried as hard as I could to hang on to 3rd up the last climb, but was nipped by two riders in the last 50 meters or so to end up with 5th. Jeff covered the second group of riders in the last lap and easily took the sprint for 10th.

All in all, a rather tough but enjoyable race day. Congrats to all the Team R.A.C.E riders and those who came to help.

Paul