Ohio Spring Series #1 Deer Creek Race Report 2012

I rode up with jamie(pike county), billy(orange crush) and lil t(lil t). luckily pike county’s navigation skills are second to none. he made 3 hours of driving only require 3.5 hours. :)

We had clear skies up until about 20 miles from the course. As luck would have it, some rain clouds greeted us and began to drop lots o’ water.

we made it to deer creek with a little under 1 hour to get registered, visit the port-a-potty(some of us, multiple times), get kits on, check our horoscope, etc…

CAT 5
Pike County, Billy the Orange and Lil T went out into a heavily sand bagged Cat 5 race stacked 50 deep field. This is Lil T’s first road race, but not his first rodeo cowboy. I predicted he’d podium because he’s riding really strong. He’s racing his new cross bike with a 1×10 system. Needless to say, the 30± mph straights had him spinning his pistons close to 150rpms!  Jamie and Billy are tightly matched and I see those two pushing each other throughout this year. Lil T stays with the peloton for his entire first road race and finishes a respectable 16th out of 50 riders! Billy fell off with about 2 laps to go and Jamie later followed suit after suffering severe cramps from a mid-race refuelling of fried chicken and corn dog. Billy hunted Jamie down and got him right before the end. Billy was really close to getting chicked, but was able to out gun her towards the end – take that… Feel free to elaborate and or correct me peoples.

CAT 3/4
Seth, Kyle, Hardball and Myself lined up for this race. Hardball rolls to the line with a vine of grapes hoping it would get him through 2 hours of racing. I didn’t have any extra fuel to offer him. I think he was stuffing grap vines in his jersey pockets before the race. As we’re leaving and still in the NEUTRAL zone, someone hits the pavement. Kyle and I barely dodge the slow motion carnage. I took a bike wheel to my left hand. Unfortunately, Seth hits something pretty hard. Apparently he raced the entire race with a cracked zipp 303! I think hardball get slowed down to a stop and dismounted, but i think he avoids the wreckage. 100 riders a couple inches from each other on half a road is pretty tight. At least pro pelotons with 120 riders get the entire roadway. Needless to say, bam another wreck occurs while crossing a bridge. Apparently as when we were crossing the bridge at about 25 a ref rolls by on his motorcycle and tells people to get inside the yellow. This crams everyone together in an even smaller space and WHAM! That shitty crashing carbon fiber sound starts to echo through the valley… I do a small hop over someones wheel and then end up leaning into a girl from Team Dayton. We share a little Secret and luckily stay upright. Kyle barely squeaks through behind me. Still no site of Seth or Matt at this point. I’m assuming they’re working their way back from the first mishap.

Shortly after this wreck, we get some torrential rain that was blasting down on us and a couple lightning strikes in the distance. The cat 4/5’s were lucky enough to avoid this fun wet section. My brakes were almost useless as we were barreling downhill in the rain. About 2 laps in, Seth finally rolls up and is looking strong – as always. Still no sign from Matt. Apparently, he had to make his second dismount. Which was good, he could stop and eat some grapes from his pocket.

About 2 laps to go and Kyle was hoping we could break the pack before the uphill section. Seth, Kyle and I went off the front pulling about 33-35 mph and attempted to get away but this was shut down pretty fast with a huge peloton.

I dropped back and watched Seth and Kyle up front. Still no sign of Hardball. It appeared to me Seth was taking some rather long pulls out front. He burnt his last match and ended up dropping to the back of the pack – finding Hardball snacking on some grapes.

Kyle was in a pretty good position up towards the front for the final sprint and ended up charging into 4th overall! I thought I was in good position for the last sprint but the peloton started to widen and I got pushed over the yellow line. I didn’t want to get DQ’d so I let off the gas and coasted into 13th overall (4th cat 4’s). I’ll take it. A day or racing is better than a day of staring at a computer.

HUNGRY!