PA State Road Race Championships

Today's Robert Fulton Road Race, the Pennsylvania State Road Race Championships, was obviously a big goal for the Human Zoom/Pabst Blue Ribbon cycling team. We showed up to the race with a full squad, as did all the other big teams from the state. It was time for war.

Our team's plan was to be aggressive; control the front of the race at the start and put me into the break that would hopefully stick to the end. This morning we lost our team sprinter, Keith, to the flu, so most of our chips were thrown into the breakaway basket. Looking at the course profile and video online, it looked like a rolling-type course; perfect for a break to get away and hold a gap to the finish if it has the right mix of teams represented.

Right from the gun, Louis takes off and gets a small gap with a couple of guys. The pack wasn't ready to let a break go that early and it quickly got pulled back. I was holding a good position when the break came back and as soon as we were back together a dangerous counter-attack takes off up the road. Seeing my chance I jump out of the pack, quickly bridge up, and take a look behind me. Nice! 4 guys and we have a gap, let's go! We had the right mix of guys: Joe Whitman from Alliance Environmental, Dan Wilson from Monstr Health, and a dude from GPOA. We started working well together taking strong even pulls, except for the GPOA guy since their team leader didn't make the break.

I guess it was bad karma not helping to pull through, because the second time up one of the climbs, a small dog ran out onto the road and viciously attacked the GPOA guy! All of a sudden we hear bark! bark! "Ouch!!!" I turned around to see what was going on, and he was gone...

The rest of the race was actually pretty boring: pull through, recover, recover. Pull through, recover, recover. I knew that my team was doing an awesome job for me back in the pack to help us stay away. We actually built our lead up over 5 minutes, but nobody was giving us time gaps, so we had no idea and kept working to stay away. On the last lap we were all fighting off leg cramps, and I was the first victim of them on the climb. Instantly shelled! As I watched the two other guys ride away from me, my thoughts quickly changed from "What do I have to do to win this race" to "What can I do to survive and hold off the charging pack?" Luckily there were only 5 miles left to go; I settled into a zone that I could hold and soloed in for 3rd place. I actually got 2nd in the PA Championships because Dan is an out-of-stater.

Overall it was a really cool race, held in pretty hot weather! I badly misread the course profile though; those "rolling hills" were actually really steep grinders, and only having a 23-tooth cog wasn't helping my cause. Still I was able to ride strongly on the climbs up until the last lap.