I’m ashamed at myself for not getting this out a little bit sooner. In between life events, daily responsibilities and everyone being in a hurry to get to next weekend, we managed to leapfrog and entire weekend’s update. This race, the Perry Roubaix, took place just a couple weekends back.
This race is a long time spring favorite, despite the shuffling and such with promoters; we love Perry and we love the course, so we keep on going back. It takes place just outside of town, comprised of a TT, a criterium like circuit race and the namesake road race. The road course is specifically fun, as it has a nice mix of smooth pavement, chip and seal, hills and, of course, dirt…about 3 miles of it.
In attendance, we had a real nice contingent. Chris Chotas, Hank Beaver, Colby Millen and the evergreen Chad Madan. On Saturday, for the criterium/circuit, the day began with mild temps and gradually got colder, cloudier, windier and wetter. We were literally shaking from the weather on the starting line for the crit. The race started off fast and with several attacks right off the bat, as they do pretty much always now, so luckily, we warmed up quickly. We managed to put a rider in every significant move, but most importantly, we were quite happy to see that we could without digging too deep in reserves. It appeared that none of the moves would stay away with such an aggressive group of racers, until Chris caught wind of the final move and latched on at the last minute. After several laps in the break and the finish line within a mile, Chris was holding his own in his size 7 loaner shoe with just one lap to go, until one of the other teams decided they would burn the rest of their matches to reel back the break. Chris’s work was done. We all began to situate ourselves for the finish with racers peeling off left and right avoiding crashes. Chad was the first to line us up for the sprint. Hank and Colby somehow got separated but were able to position themselves at the front for the sprint. Hank bolted himself to a strong 6th place and Colby managed to creep in to complete the top 10 spot. Two top 10′s, nice work.
The following day, for the Road Race, was an improvement as far as the weather was concerned. Th same four fellas came back the next day pumped and fueled for more racing. The race was 5 laps long, totaling a distance of 65 miles, 3miles of dirt road per lap and a very taxing group of hills. Right from the start, 3 pro’s took off without looking back. We felt as though the race was still early and plenty of time to regroup. Before the first lap was completed, strong headwinds and sandy dirt roads had separated the field in two, all of us except Chris making the front half. The break was a minute and half up the road with only 3 teams represented, so there was plenty of fire in the main field to bridge the gap. As the race transpired, Chad and Colby were beginning to feel the weekend’s effort on the climbs, so they both immediately assumed roles to support Hank as best they could. Hank was riding strong so we knew that we needed to get him to the break one way or another. After throwing everything that we could against the gap, it proved to be just too strong and cooperative, thus staying away. However, another strong sprint to place 3rd in the main field sprint and 15th for the day, as Hank quickly cements himself as one of our road captains for the year 2010.
Thanks for reading and thanks even more for your support!