Palmer Road Race
Palmer, MA
April 24, 2005
By JP Partland
I was there in the pro/am. Brandon, Joaquin, Keith, and Rick
were in the III-IV.
They say this is a 20-mile circuit, but I'd guess it's more
like 18 miles, with a 3-mile ride to the circuit. The course is
rolling, with a little small-ring action, but mostly it feels fast.
This year, the headwind was on the rolling section at the start of
the lap and the tailwind on the false flat 10k road back to the final
turn a bit less than a mile to the finish. the pro/am did the race
in 3 hours for the 75 miles of racing.
I didn't want to pounce on everything because I was thinking
things would come together on the last lap and lead to a ballistic
finale; weather was nice, wind wasn't that strong, and having a
tailwind for the long straightaway should discourage breakaways. In
addition, a break from the gun took the victory last year, and I
expected people to ride with that in mind.
I felt like I was at odds with the rhythm of the race most of
the time. Legs were good, but the moves that looked promising which
I joined in failed, and the moves that didn't look promising and I
didn't join seemed to work. Big moves would get a small gap, hover,
and slowly move away. THen, they'd slowly get pulled back. 20
people got away in the closing miles of the first lap. Even though
the 12-man Garneau team at only 2 in the break, they weren't chasing.
As a result, the break stayed away for 30 miles. The winning break
formed on the 3rd lap. The first part of the break seemed to go on a
brutal crosswind section. I was groveling in the gutter barely
hanging on.
I wasn't too worried about a group getting away on the
crosswind section, because it was followed by a long downhill, good
for 45+mph, and then, after a rise, we had a tailwind for the better
part of 10k. I expected that there would be vicious attacks and hard
chasing on the tailwind section. They weren't totally materializing.
A few teams were trying to do things, but there didn't seem to be
much oordiation. After the field seemed to find a decent high
tempo, I attacked. Didn't go too hard, hoping to get a gap, draw a
few people, then work with the small group to get up the road.
Initially, just two joined, one sitting on because at teammate was up
the road. Then I got 3 more. It was a good size for getting away.
Unfortunately, the field pounced, and as we got caught, an attack
with a number of strong racers attacked and got up the road. Boom,
almost 30 guys made it up the road. I felt stupid for not being up
there.
While the field basically conceded victory to the break on
the finishing hill with a lap to go, we did eventually wind it up,
and most of the way up the false flat was pretty fast. With only 10
places on the line and 30 in a big pack, I figured there'd be some
shakeout as the strong ones shelled those unwilling to work. Guess
it didn't happen. I tried to escape from the field in the last mile,
but didn't have the legs to pull it off and got caught with about 300
uphill meters to go.
And I might be too harsh in my evaluation of Garneau. They
soloed a rider to the win and got second as well. Method to their
madness?
JP
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