Wells Avenue: August 27th Race Report

After much disagreement with the Mrs and with the help of my bull-headed resolve, I made it to Wells Avenue today, by myself, eager to test the legs and perhaps make my mark. Fields were not combined, which is fine with me except that it makes me regret leaving the house so darn early.. Mark Stockwell won the B race by at least a bike length. He's a former team mate and friend who always takes the time and effort to shoot great quality pictures of his team mates (and even his former team mates- like me!) Good job Mark- you truly made it look easy at the end there.

Union Velo had myself and two others in the event today: Jay Busse and Matt Kressy. I saw Jay very active in some early moves, and I spied Matt at the front a few times blocking for him. Otherwise, we seemed to criss cross eachother front to back as each of us put in some time at the front and drifted back to recover. We didn't have this warm and fuzzy sense of unity for whatever reason. Maybe it's just me... Hopefully my decision to wear an old Genesee Valley Cycling Club jersey didn't send the wrong message to Jay. Actually, Matt asked if I was changing teams and I assured him in no uncertain terms that I was just being nostalgic. The GVCC jersey has been with me since 1987, and it's the one in which I have won the most races. In fact, I served as President of the club during 1989 (at the very young age of 18!) At any rate, it was a pretty full "A" field with three of us present.

Half-way prime: I found myself with the strength and the speed to be a contender in this one, for a change! Matt and another- I don't know who- accelerated beautifully coming out of the sweeping right hand bend, and I found myself in 3rd wheel with about 75 meters to go, until some one in a red shirt swerved left and stole most of my momentum. I ended up crossing 4th for no money, but with a definite mental boost. Matt took 1st or 2nd, and I was happy to witness it up close.

Today I was as calm as a Buddhist cow and avoided as much un-necessary work as possible- I did no chasing of stupid hopeless breaks, decided against dragging the field down the road on my nickel. Frankly, I sat in as much as possible. With about 10 to go I went for another prime drawing from my re-discovered confidence taken from the half-way prime. Without enough gas to take it, I drifted across in third, but with a breath-taking gap on the field. It's nice to look back and count yourself among a handful of people who just dusted everyone else.

With just a couple of laps to go I felt strong enough to gain position and found all kinds of holes to get through. The final sprint starting winding up pretty early so I tried to be as attentive and as resourceful as possible. So much of the final result depends upon whose wheel you follow, and most often we find ourselves on the wrong wheel, while the right wheel goes whizzing by.. Today I was fortunate and found myself very close to Matt coming out of the final bend. I got out of the saddle early and could see myself getting a very good result... very smooth and powerful acceleration... tasting a good result... then Matt's shoe broke free of his pedal and for a split second I thought today would mark my 4th trip to the hospital this season. Luckily he managed to swing left and I made it through, less some speed, but I held it for 6th place.