Inauspicious Beginnings

It turns out I did manage to pre-register for Koppenberg which means I owe the postal service $.02 for still delivering the envelope. I planned on racing anyways since it was the first BAR/BAT race of the season and it seemed like a decent thing to do despite all dread prior.

I knew what to expect from having ridden the course a couple weeks back. The bit of moisture we had between the first attempt at holding the race and yesterday did little to the road except make it slightly more choppy in places. The upper section after the climb was still really loose and gravelly, of course towards the gutter, the only place you could get a decent draft off of anybody in front of you.

The start was mellower than I remember it being as a cat 3 and I managed not only to get into my pedals, but also avoided those who almost crashed in the process. I was sitting reasonably well mid pack when we hit the dirt, but wanted to move up before the hill for fear of having to run it if anybody came to a standstill. As the pack slowed prior to the hill, I managed to make it pretty much to the front, giving me the ability to pick a decent line and make it up the hill with minimal effort. At the top I tried to catch onto a wheel as quickly as possible and get a decent draft across the top, the first mistake of many.

I followed wheels on the back side of the course and found myself a few meters off the front with Phil Zajicek, but nothing doing. As we hit the dirt for the second lap I was looking to drift back a bit and get out of the wind when Ivan Stevic rolled away from everybody. Of the many courses of action possible at that point, I picked the worst, the one that involved me thinking to myself, "Hmmm, there goes the race."

From that point forward I didn't do a very good job of following wheels that should have been followed. I picked some bad lines going up the hill, wasted efforts trying to ride in the gutter as opposed to just taking a decent line at the top in the wind, and then worst of all, just gave up. I let a gap open up, in whatever group I was in at that point, at the top of the hill on lap 5, chased for a lap and a half before calling it quits as I turned into the wind on the dirt going into lap 7.

I could have had a better effort for the first race of the season, but plenty more racing to be come.