Pine Flat RR
M45 4/5, 18th of 34
My last race a couple weekends ago was Pine Flat. 45 miles of lightly rolling to flat terrain, then a 3 mile climb, 7 mile gradual descent, and a short 1/2 mile kicker climb to the finish. The only reasonable thing to do in this race is to sit in the pack for the first part then attack on the climb. Since that is everyone else’s plan the pace was pretty easy for the first part, with only periodic speedups when someone tried to break away and the pack shut them down.
Not knowing the course I moved to the front a little early (worried about being boxed in when the climb started) and probably did too much work there. I couldn’t quite hang with the lead group over the climb. I was about 20 seconds off at the top, and couldn’t catch back up on the descent. I got swept up by a 5 rider chase group and most of them out-sprinted me at the finish. Including the guy who had pulled most of the first 45 miles because he was bored.
Race incidents- on the fast descent to the valley about 30 miles in to the race we came around a corner to find a bunch of cars stopped, race officials screaming “single file! single file!” at us and a couple ambulances. And at the crash scene, a huge puddle of blood. I found out later that someone in the 3s had hooked bars with a club mate and jerked the bars to get loose, which caused him to crash. Then he got run over by other riders. We had to slow down for the ambulances to pass us. Seeing the aftermath kind of put a damper on things for me for a while.
On the gradual descent when I got caught, I wound up in the ditch along side the road. No big deal except that a woman we’d caught had gotten in the line and was taking the spot I needed. I said a bad word and she moved over enough to let me hop out of the ditch and back on the road. I was a bit miffed because when I catch women’s fields in a race I take pains to stay out of their way.