Palmer Library Road Race

Another road race, another "learning experience" or "training ride". I entered the Cat 5 open. The Cat 5 35+ was closed, but I don't think it would have made any difference. The race was 39 miles through a bunch of towns west of Sturbridge that I've never heard of. Part of the race runs along a two lane highway. The whole pack was in the right lane, when some dude went down taking out quite a few others. I swerved and missed the mess, but one guy went over the handle bars and fell with his bike sideways. I slightly bumped the his wheel. When I turned back, I saw some of the mess had spread into the left lane and a car had to pull onto the median to avoid them. Maybe I should add "not getting killed" to "not getting my ass kicked" on the list of reasons to stay with mountain bike racing.

Besides that, the races was pretty uneventful for the first hour and 35 minutes. I just hung out near the back of the peloton. Towards the end, I tried to start moving closer to the front, but it was hard to stay there and be on someone's wheel. Things were starting to move fast. The next thing I realize is the guy in front of me was falling off, I tried to catch back up, but by then we were at the final sprint. I said screw it and just rode easily in.

I think the lessons learned are: 1. be more aggressive staying closer to the front of the group. 2. do some training where I go pretty hard for about five minutes and then go really hard for another two minutes so I'm ready for the sprint finishes.

I think it is back to mountain bike racing for a while. Glocester grind next weekend.