State RR Report
From: Jeff Ingham
Date: Aug 27, 2007 9:58 AM
Heres a brief recap of the crash filled Master 4/5 race.
Nice day line up with two other Gophers Tim and David and about 65
others, mostly Loon State. There were at least 10 Loon State Guys.
The course is a fairly flat nicely paved 17mile loop. One small hill
but its definitely not a climb. It would be a fun course if there
weren’t 65 other guys jammed into one lane, several sweeping turns,
even a left hand turn. At the begining of lap 1 I make my way up to
the front and talk to some of the smaller teams there, Tonka and GP
about trying to get off the front so we don’t have a repeat of the
last Avon race. I get several agreements especially from the Tonka
guys.
We spend most of the first two laps jumping off the front trying to
get something set up, we must have tried 10 times to get away. The
result each time was Loon State would send a few guys up to the front
then pick a guy to drag the pack back to any break. They made no
attempt to keep the pace high or help in creating a break. Its their
typical tactic and I hate it. After two laps of beating my brains out
at the front I’ve got some wicked leg cramps. Lap 3, riding back in
the pack to try to recover a little I asked Todd Nesvold from Tonka if
I take one more shot at getting away would he help me. We’ve been
riding at the front most of the race and he says he’s cooked too, and
he’s sitting in for the sprint. In the mean time Tim is at the front
pulling for a long time.
Coming into the straight there are just too many guys to fit in the
limited space. About 1.5 miles from the finsih something happens and
there a big pile up that I swerve right and avoid, some guys does an
endo into the ditch. About 1 mile later thinking I’ll find a way to
move up thru the field for a good position for the sprint someone
cramps or sits up or something and this time theres a huge pile up and
David goes down. I lock up the brakes and swerve into the grass and
just barely avoid everything. Now there’s a big gap and I have to
sprint to get back on and just as I’m catching on we cross the line at
the back of the lead group.
Without the crashes it probably would have been a fun race, I just
wish it hadn’t come down to a massive field sprint, too dangerous, too
many riders. We tried our best to get away early, maybe the course
wasn’t hard enough to dump all the weaker guys.
On to cyclocross where I can crash as much as I want and not worry
about getting killed!