Richmond Festival Of Cross - Bryan Park

Jake & I packed up the car and headed down to Richmond at 0-dark-thirty for the Bryan Park race (which was day 2 of 2 races in Richmond).  I've never gone down to any of the Virginia races, so this year decided to do this instead of going to Granogue next weekend.  Time to try a different scene (and not quite as far to drive).

 

It was cool.  Definitely a different vibe.  More like when I started only 5 years ago.  More grass roots.  But still serious guys -- Just not 100 of them.  Ken and Jean were there.  They had raced Saturday as well (Ken in fact doing the trifecta on Saturday).  Bill Browne (he was a big hitter 2 years ago, Cat 2, but I think has essentially retired from the road this year; still big powerful engine).  The course was much different from any I'd ever done.  Very fast, largely non-technical, with a long (like 3/4 mile) road section on the back half of the course.  This would be pack racing, draft would be important, big ring the whole way.

 

I lined up in the open 35+ (not enough people for a separate "b" masters here), next to the guy who won the day before and was wearing his Virginia Champion jersey (great).  Ken was at the other side of the first row.  I Got a good start and slotted into 5th or so.  I was attentive to gaps being opened.  Basically I stayed somewhere between 3rd and 5th position for the first couple laps.  No reason to put my nose in the wind.  Every time through the road (where we were hammering and there were several attacks) we seemed to lose people.  Bill Browne took a big pull on the second lap but then couldn't hold onto the back of the dwindling line. 

 

By the 4th lap, there were only 4 of us and the 2 lead guys put in a hard attack on the road.  I had to let them go, and the guy from Altius went around me and latched on them.  So I was in 4th in no man's land.  I recovered a bit for a lap until a guy caught me from behind (I only remember his last name was Schindler, he may have been this guy, 5th in Va State RR 1/2/3 in 2004, we'll stick with that).  We could see that Altius had gotten gapped off the lead 2 so I said to my new friend "let's work together to catch #3" so we did.  We took turns and pulled him back with 1.5 laps to go.  now it was going to be tactical.  I didn't want to do any work, so sat in 2d spot until we got to the road.  I also didn't want to sprint the big guy, so needed to attack.  But an early attack would leave me alone on the road, which wasn't smart.  So, I decided to attack at the end of the road going into the woods for the final 1/3 lap.  I went real hard and got a gap, not huge, but it was going to be my play.  I was hurting after the attack.  I could hear one guy probably 10 yards behind me as he slammed into the utility pole they had us bunny hop, but then I immediately bobbled the remount after the second set of barriers enough to where he was able to finally close the gap (I think; I didn't look back but was listening).  I put in another dig to crank up the speed going to the pavement.  Then I hit full gas as soon as I made the 90 degree right turn onto the pavement, but it was too far to the finish and I hadn't gapped him.  He (Schindler) came around me with relative ease with 25-50 meters to go.  I had blown my legs too early.

 

4th.  Still pretty cool.

 

Jake lined up with around 7 or 8 10-14 juniors (after I knocked him over as he sat there, whoops).  The leader was clearly going to be one kid who was 14 and Bill told me had won some Cat 5 road races.  They started 1 minute after the women's B race (which was 1 minute behind the women's A, which included Ms. Jean Bean).  Anyway,  Jake took the hole shot.  I rode to the back side of the course and by then the bigger boy had passed him, but Jake was easily in 2d and motoring.  By the end of the 1st lap he had caught one of the B women!  She proceeded to sit on him for a lap.  Jake was 30 seconds clear of the boy in 3d (who was 11, like Jake).  Jake gapped the B woman in the 3d lap, and by then he had nearly a minute on the kid in 3d.  But the woman had caught up to him by the middle of the last lap.  they sprinted for the line.  Jake thought she nipped him, but hey, she started a minute ahead and she was a full grown adult.  So he was Second.

 

A fine result for the team on our Southern swing.  No race for us next weekend.  Time for a recovery week for a boost to the second half of the season. 

See, sometimes it pays to try something new and have a change of scenery.

photos later this week from www.backlightdigital.com and Kevin Dillard who were shooting the races

Comments

[JeffA]

Nice job...definitely smaller fields and different type of competition....

[Grandpa Tommy]

Way to you two!!!!!
You really know how to make an old man proud.