Chippewa Creek RR

Guava Nectar! Drank 16oz of the stuff on my sleep-deprived drive up to Brecksville for our 8:30 start and had one of my best races despite tired legs from a hard training ride the day before. Now it's going to be spelt waffles and Guava Nectar for a while as my pre-race dietary regimen.
This course suits my limited abilities-the climb was hard enough to wear people down over time, the turns were non-technical, and the rolling course prevented surges/accelerations leading up to the climb. After a group of ten or so gapped the field a second group formed that at first seemed content to catch it's breath and go into cruise control mode. Larry did his Shaved-Dave impression and yelled a lot marshalling the group to chase rather than simply race for 11th place, and lead by example pulling at the front practically half the time over the last 5 laps. Half the lead group fragged and were caught. Steve took some long pulls too and was always at or near the front up the hill, including the last time up where he made it easy for me to do something. On the last turn leading up to the hill I slowly wound it up and then tried my best to charge after an Allegheny Hospital guy who seemed to climb much better than his build would suggest, following him well ahead of the chase group to the finish. Without a doubt my OK finish was due to Larry and Steve working so hard. One more thing: I set a goal before the season began and this race I accomplished that goal-I beat Larry.

I Love This Race!!! Thanks to all the sponsors and everyone who contributed to make this race possible. Thanks to everyone cheering us on to get up the hill and continue to push ourselves to the extreme. Thanks to my Loving Wife, only 5 weeks to go until we meet Baby Caylin, I Love you both so much. Thank you Jesus for the blessings in our lives!

The race started out fast and a break formed. I decided to chase. Just before I caught the break, 7 different riders took off. Ryan took off with the other 6 riders and no one could reach them the rest of the race.

Before the downhill 4 of us in the field took off, we stayed away for the last lap. Thank you Lord for my safety and having fun!

1. Mitch beat me
2. Great job Ryan, you're on fire. All the more frustrating because it was obvious that Torelli was going to work you over.
3. Fun race to watch, the distance meant that the field would come about every 10 minutes.
4. Nice course, tough, but nice.

First lap, fast, but tame.
Second lap, killer strung out pace, lots of opened gaps and casualties. Winning gap opened on the climb, could I have stayed in if I had kept closer to the front? Kudos to the leaders for knowing how much to put out and when.

Nonetheless, I had a great time working the chase with two teammates, it made the race worthwhile.

I think this is one of the best run races on our calendar, excluding the SH stage race of course. I like this course because it’s one that should benefit climbers. One downhill section seemed a little less technical than last year, perhaps they modified the course?

My fitness has taken a back seat recently, so the earlier parts of this race felt really hard. Unfortunately, I was in a bad position when the significant break occurred and I had to exert too much energy to bridge. By the time I made the gap, I couldn’t recover before the next move. I really wanted to drop out but I’m glad I didn’t. By this time, we had three SH riders in a chase group which enabled us to control the efforts at times. It was clear that we would not catch the breakaway, so I felt that we could benefit by not letting the field catch us, while at the same time giving SH the best chance of a high finish. By my indication, Larry and Mitch were much stronger, so on the last lap I kept the pace as high as possible for them to contest the uphill sprint. Mitch did a great job taking second in the sprint… Nice job guys!

BTW thanks to everyone for the encouragement, it made a difference.

Nice course, bad legs.