By John Cheetham -- Snelling Road Race (3) -- 02/26/10
As the semi- official kickoff for the season, Snelling always has tons of racers(over 1000 this year!)and a split personality, years with no wind, folks without many miles in their legs can sit in and spin over the rollers and wait for the field sprint, but the years with wind... oh man, a different race altogether.
With a BBQ after in the park and about 20 Mintys altogether at the race, we were going to have a good time whatever the day threw at us, but on to the race report.
Every few years the wind comes from the south on this course, and when it does it's a battle for the front. The wind was very strong when we got to the park but was slowing some by the start.
First lap 75 cat 3's roll out and try not to kill each other on the promenade with the moto slowing on the downhills- yay!
Nothing of note happened the first lap except for riding through huge puddles of standing water over a foot deep in the morning, but as we went through the finish a few of us moved up for the Keyes Road painfest.
Metromint, SJBC, and several well-drilled Specialized juniors hit the rotation with the cross tailwind and put in some hard punches to the body, this would be the recurring theme both on Keyes and Olsen the rest of the day, working for the split and to shed riders every lap.
After the first time through I heard a atrocious thwacking behind me and realized it was Rob with a broken spoke, bummer!
We had lost Paul in the water and we were down to two riders with 4 laps to go, time to change the game plan a bit- I rolled up and let Mark know the situation and tried to keep him fresh while getting in a solid training session, which was my personal goal for the day.
The painfests continued with attacks rolling off but being grabbed back and us shedding riders on Keyes every time, Specialized now had the upper hand with about 4 guys left.
I got dropped on Keyes the last time around but got back on the water crossing and roller climb, went to the front of a depleted pack of 35 guys and saw Mark sitting in a good spot.
I figured leave it all on the table and covered a couple moves to keep it together/ give the pack a carrot and motivator not to slow too much but I was cooked and gone OTB with a couple K to go, job done, now I can start thinking about veggie kabobs and chicken burgers...mmm.
Mark finished a solid 3rd, he rode huge all day and was a pleasure to work for, it's going to be a fun fun spring!