The Bristol Mountain Road Race was last Saturday. Four members of the RUUD Racing Team, Brian Beach, Chuck Rhoades, Andrew Williams, and myself made the trek up to the Western Finger Lakes for this annual race that combines flat and windy sections with long, steep climbs in a 17 mile circuit race format.
I raced in the Cat 4 field which does 3 laps for a 51 mile race. The field started out as a pack of 35ish. The first part is about 6 miles of flat, very windy highway before turning onto a back road. The pack stayed together here, with the exception of Craig Burbules of the TBS Racing team who went solo off the front very early in the race. Craig is the rider who used this same tactic in the Binghamton Circuit Race Cat 4 field to eventually win that race. He eventually was joined by Austin Skomra of Emblem Racing who was able to bridge up to him. I myself, was unable to attempt this as I was boxed in at the back of the pack for the first several miles. That's one reason to try and get a good position when lining up for the start of a race, although, those guys were so strong, I doubt I could've stayed with them even if I got up there.
The rest of the pack turned off the windy highway onto the side road, and by this point, I had made my way to the front. A bit of rotation ensued to attempt to chase down the 2 leaders, and I was happy to help a little with this. After the turn there is about a mile and a half before the first climb starts. This climb starts gradual, then culminates in a short but fairly steep climb on Egypt Valley Road. Still, the pack stayed together and continued to chase, keeping the leaders in sight through the next several miles of rollers.
At this point the race turns onto Egypt road, which is a slight right onto a very steep wall. I was positioned near the front and had myself in an easy gear, but still several people passed me, and then there were some screams and at least 2 riders hit the pavement right in front of me. I was able to go around unscathed, but the riders in front of the crash had acquired a significant gap. Egypt road is a fairly long climb, but it is split into about 4 sections. The first is a very steep, but short wall, followed by a more gradual, but long section. After that it levels out a bit and there is a chance to rest before it continues up in another gradual section, followed by another rest, followed my one more moderate grade, short section at the top.
I was unable to close the gap on this climb, so I reached the top and kicked into chase mode. There are a few more rollers before a fast (50 mph+) descent leading to the start/finish line. The best thing would've been to catch the group ahead before turning onto rt 64, the flat windy highway, but, although I was joined by another rider, we were unable to close the gap before the turn. On the flat section, we were joined by a third chaser, but then the original guy dropped off and there were just 2 of us to close the gap. Slowly, we reeled them in, and were able to catch them shortly before the turn off the highway. My chasing partner, likely hurting from the chase was unable to hold on through the next climbs, but luckily I was.
The race now looked like the 2 leaders waaaaaay off the front, a group of 7 of us behind that, and everyone else scattered behind. Our group of 7 maintained a consistent rotation, and kept the pace nice and steady, but it wasn't fast enough to ever see the leaders again. We all stayed in contact through the second lap and third lap until the last time up Egypt road. Here a couple riders in our group pushed the pace and got a small gap. I found that if I could stay close enought through the longest portion of the climb (segment 2), then I could recover enough during the rest portions and close the gap before the top of the following shorter segments. One rider dropped off on this climb, the 2 riders from our group kept their gap to the top, and 4 of us were chasing them. I put in an effort to bridge near the top of the climb, but couldn't quite get there. The four of us teamed up and were able to close the gap in the rollers before the big descent, though, so we did end up with a 6 man sprint for the finish.
I nearly got third in this sprint, but couldn't quite get past the rider ahead of me, who edged me out by less than a wheel length. This put me in sixth place overall, which I was very happy with, although, the money only went to 5 places and I missed it by less than a tenth of a second...oh well, it was still a good race.
Here are the results: http://www.yellowjacketracing.com/files/user/143_2013_1_SU_BristolMountain.htm
