Race: New York Spring Series #7
Location: Central Park, NY, NY
Distance: 36 Miles
Date: Sunday, April 4, 2004
Racer: J.P. Partland
Jour Sans is "a day without" in French. My command of idiomatic French is only slightly worse than my conversational French (which is terrible), but I'm told it is commonly used to mean "a day without pleasure." In cycling terms, it means that one surprisingly doesn't have any strength in the legs.
Today was my jour sans, at the CP Spring Series race, and it was a bummer. I like doing spring series races in the rain, as it seems to favor my style of racing. Last week, at FBF, I was happy for the rain, and was working what I thought would have been a good strategy, but the flat tire with four to go kind of got in the way.
Today's race had a small field dominated by Toga/Gotham. Maybe 50 guys started. I haven't figured out why Toga gets one jersey and Gotham another when they ride as one group, but this has been the case for years. Toga had four and Gotham had four, and that was four more riders than the next largest team, and Mengoni only had one. At FBF, Toga/Gotham had the same crew, but were kind of kept in check by Mengoni, who came with five. There, Toga attacked, Mengoni chased, Toga attacked again.
With two strong teams in a field like this, you know that the attack has to have both riders until one of the teams is spent. But with one, they can go and go and go until they get what they want.
Mengoni had only one rider today, so the only thing to do was to figure out which moment was the best to go with a Toga rider (Gotham just rides support). One of the four, Pulla, is a favorite for the overall in the Spring series, so he attracts a crowd each time he attacks, thus making it not quite as critical to mark him closely. At least Pollo will be on him fast.
Problem was, we had only two riders (Jon Orcutt was the other), and neither of us were on good days. We did go with a number of Toga moves, but there were too many to cover for two people. The field's mo was attack, chase, slow, attack, chase, slow. Eventually people were going to get tired or annoyed and we wanted to be there at that moment.
We missed it. We talked about what to do. I was hoping Jon had good enough legs so I could help him try something in the final lap or two, but he was hoping to either help me or just to hang on. I should have been more concerned about this myself, as I led hard into 110berg with 2 to go, and nearly got dropped over the top. I was still hoping there'd be a way to set up Jon for something, and if that didn't work, conserve until I found a moment in the final mile or two. My legs definitely weren't ready for a field sprint.
The field wasn't taking the chase seriously, having pretty much given up on catching the two toga leaders with two to go. There was either a 20-second or a minute deficit at that point, totally catchable either way, but the people with teams weren't coordinated and the others were more interested in sitting around.
Over 110berg, I hung on and was looking for the moment to go. Followed some feints, but didn't really commit. At the pace we were going and the size of the field, it wasn't hard to move up quickly when you wanted to. There wasn't much momentum in the field, so if you pedaled a bit longer after people started soft-pedaling, you could get to the front fast.
A moment presented itself by Tavern. The little downhill is a great place to get moving quickly if the field isn't hammering. And they weren't. My hope was that people would be afraid of committing to the chase and ruining their chances in the sprint. One guy was off, but dangling a few feet right of the joggers lane. I went hard down the hill seated, passed between the guy and the white line and got my gap. Held it until a little past the funnel at the south end. I thought my race was over. But the field sat up again. So, right before the next down pitch, right by the closed car entrance, I moved up on the left and went for it again. Got a slightly better gap this time, and held it until I entered the final chicane.
Race over for me. Jon tried to mix it up in the sprint. I don't think he made it. The wet definitely wasn't a problem during the race, though pretty much the second minute after stopping was when the cold took hold.
Next week, it looks like a two-race weekend. We've got the Kissena Prospect race Saturday and the Spring Series race in CP Sunday.
JP |
