|
Gran Prix of Gloucester |
|
|
Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
|
|
Written by Steve Morse
|
|
Sunday, 14 October 2007 |
Gran Prix of Gloucester
Gloucester, MA
October 13-14, 2007
 | | click to enlarge |
This past week has been pretty, pretty tough for me. Two races last weekend in Maine, a training race on Wednesday and now the double header up in Gloucester, MA. So that makes 5 races in 8 days if you are counting. But it's cross season, and this is what I trained for all year! The Gran Prix of Gloucester (known in these here parts as the "New England Worlds") also serves as stops #1 and #2 for the Verge New England Championship series. If you're a cross racer and you live within a 4 hour drive, you would have found yourself on Cape Ann this weekend getting your head kicked in.
Well, I guess I can only speak for myself, but that's pretty much what happened. Having just moved up to Elite Masters from the Killer B's, I knew I was in for a beating, but never knew just how rough the transition would be. Here's how my racing went:
Day 1:
Arrived at Stage Fort Park OK, reg'd, did a little bench racing with the fellers, and then kitted up and did a preride. The course was pretty much the classic "clockwise" Gloucester layout. Lots of long, false flat power sections. As always, nice hi speed camber changes on the grassy field, and a brutal wind tunnel section down by the sea wall. In the bone dry conditions we had, this would make for an absolute drag race. The sand trap was a very nice touch, and was manicured a bit more than previous years. It looked like they might have even trucked in some new sand. Of course, there was also the infamous Stage Fort runup, complete with UCI height barriers on the bombed out dirt hill. Not sure why, but the pitch of the runup on made the barriers seem even taller.
After the preride, I did my usual trainer warmup and the headed down to staging, along with other BIKEMAN racers Big Al, and Matt Hersey. With 125 guys registered for Elite Masters, I was surprised at how well they got everyone lined up so efficiently. Top 10 from last year got front row real estate, then it was by order of online registration. Luckily I have a good trigger mouse-finger for the online registration, but I still managed to only register 45 seconds after it opened. This put me on about the 4th or 5th row. Not too bad, considering there was about 7 or 8 more rows of guys behind me. Big Al was on the same row as me, not sure where Matt was.
 | | click to enlarge |
Anyhow, after some instruction from the officials, the melee began. All 125 guys sprinted up the road, as hard as possible. It was a long, paved road that gradually got steeper as you crossed the finish area. Then it dumps into the first dirt/grass area. I was around the middle of the group going into this bottleneck. I was out of the saddle, sprinting as hard as I could, and then I feel myself getting pushed from the left. So naturally, I started leaning on the guy to my right so I don't go down. WHAM, I see the guy to my right disappear in a cloud of dust into the fence. The last thing I remember seeing in my peripheral vision is someone's head at about my foot/pedal level. The head was in a strange position and was yelling at me. As I passed the head, I had to slow down to avoid another crash right in front of me, but I got through it without hitting the deck. When it ended, I was basically one of the last riders through. Time to play catch up.
I was riding as hard as I could and initially passed a ton of guys. I must have moved up about 15 spots in the course of 30 seconds, as I hammered down the back straightaway next to the water. As we approached the uphill barriers, I could see everyone carrying their bikes a few turns before. Looked like another bottleneck coming up. I literally had to get off my bike 3 turns before the barriers and run with my bike shouldered, my free arm held straight out, in order to push people out of my way. It was just like being in a mosh pit, you did what you had to do to survive. Guys were yelling, bikes were getting tangled up and people were tripping over the barriers. It was pure mayhem, but I seemed to run through it OK.
I started hammering even harder as I approached the long power sections near the sea wall. the headwind was intense, but it didn't bother me. Apparently it bothered a lot of other people because this is where I passed a ton more guys. So I basically moved up from the 90's to the 50's pretty quick. The rest of the race was just spent trying to maintain my spot. I was riding as hard as I could and not able to pass any more people. I felt really good technically in the camber sections and the sand pit. Didn't lose any ground there to anyone, so I know I'm improving in that regard. I think I finished in 55th place. Not what I wanted, but not bad considering how big the field size was. I looked forward to racing the same course the next day and seeing if I could make an improvement.
Day 2:
 | | click to enlarge |
Basically the race on Sunday went down just like the first day, I felt about the same (not too tired, so that was a little unexpected). The course layout was exactly the same, so I felt like I knew it pretty well. There was a horrendous crash right at the start, I saw a bunch of riders on the left side go down, and could hear continued carnage behind me as I went up the road. I did have a much better start today, so I was in a decent position for the whole first lap, didn't have to play catch up as much to pass slower riders. Technically I rode another flawless race, except one bobble right at the end of the last lap when a guy sent me into the orange course netting. I didn't crash but I had to stop and untangle myself. Only lost one spot there so no biggie. Funny, I felt like I rode a better race and was pushing harder than Saturday, but I only improved by 1 place (54th). It just shows how hard Elite Masters is in New England. I go from getting top 15's in the B's last year to getting doored all the time now in Masters. I guess I just need to get used to it, and just hope that I'll slowly start to move up as the season progresses.
Steve
Photos by Amy Foster |
|
; "click to enlarge")
; "click to enlarge")
; "click to enlarge")
