Barry's Roubaix 2011

[RyanC]

I have two things to say about today. First a huge thank you to Jeremy for loaning me his Jake the Snake cross bike, without which today likely would not have ended so well for me. Second, I was disappointed TS was only able to put two riders in this race. It’s not just that it’s a BC Cup series race, it’s also a great experience and can really teach you a lot about your mettle. I would like to see at least four of us at Race the Ridge, if not more. The Maple Ridge Travelodge was very reasonable and let us have a much needed late check out so we could shower away the race grime. I really had a great weekend away. In the end, that is for me what these races are about.

Now the race report. Ultimately, I took third to Jamie Cameron and Jon Rogers (in that order) but here’s how the race unfolded. The ¾ race was 8 laps of a 10k circuit, with about 4k of pea gravel along the dyke and some convenient slightly technical sections that may have proved decisive in the results. Oh, and the weather was just this side of atrocious with wind and driving rain that made the gravel section a definite factor in selection.

The first two passes of the dyke gravel were very unpleasant. By lap three, I was tired of riding blind on the single track mud bath that was the ‘pave’ section of the race. When I say it was awful, I really mean that I considered dropping out because I literally could not even keep one eye continuously open to follow the wheel ahead of me. I am amazed I didn’t crash out early.

Then I forced my way to the front and decided to go it alone, hoping to coax another rider, or group of riders to join me. When I had 500 or 600m on the field by lap five, I began to think the day could turn out well for me. Of course, 50k is a long TT at the best of times and it’s that much more intimidating when you have wind, gravel, mud, and driving rain in the mix. I was out of sight of the pack with two laps to go and began to dream of a solo finish. It was at the end of the penultimate pass of the gravel that I saw Jamie, Jon, and a younger rider closing fast. We were a quartet for the next half lap until we dropped the younger rider.

Jamie is a pretty canny rider. He didn’t wait to see if I was the better sprinter, so on the last pass of the gravel he accelerated and could see I was slow to respond. Then he jumped hard and I had no response. Jon rolled away too as the starch was just about out of me by that point. But I could not see anyone behind me. But I pushed on, knowing that could change at any point.

I rolled across the line alone in third, 30+ seconds down on Jamie and 18 seconds down on Jon. I was tired but satisfied I had done my best.

I’ll let Josh tell his story but let me just say that a lot of guys would not have gotten a top ten with what happened to him. He’s a tough hombre.

I am still picking sand out of my eyes as I write this.

R

[Roland]

Results are posted: http://www.localride.ca/wp/2011/04/10/b ... 1-results/

[shawnc]

Results are posted: http://www.localride.ca/wp/2011/04/10/b ... 1-results/

Look at all the DNFs in the Cat 1/2 race - looks as if it was a slaughter.

Great report Ryan! Much respect to you and Josh.

[Josh.E]

To quote Sylvan, The ride today was very, very, very terrible.

It was raining hard. It was windy. It was cold. And 32km of the 80km race was in a mud puddle. There were two paths you could ride along the two tire tracks of the dyke rd. Both sides were nearly continuous puddles. The center and the gutters both had soft gravel that would pull your tires around out from under you, or bog you down. As you had to ride single file, the entire time you are riding down there it's like having someone hold a garden hose in your face with throwing handfulls of sand, dirt and grass at your eyes. You find yourself literally riding completely blind for several seconds at a time, hoping you are going straight, as the dyke drops off on both sides, and hoping the rider in front of you is not braking. You long for the road sections because then it' only water, and the water volume gets cut down to about a 1/3rd, with no sand and dirt in your eyes. I remember looking over at one guy half way down the dyke on one lap, who had his face covered in mud, and two inches of snotty drool hanging out the side of his mouth and off his chin. The rider in front of me had some sort of strange foam coming off the ass of his chamois. "That aint right", I thought.
If you think you are tough, or fancy yourself a bike racer, you really need to experience racing like this.

My race didn't go how I hoped, but in the end I'm very happy with how my body felt, and with my ride overall. Like Ryan mentioned, we were in the cat 3/4 race, 8:30am start time.
On the second lap (one before Ryan broke away), I pulled the entire 4K along the gravel, and had thoughts of trying to go off the front to see who might follow, but ended up deciding against it, as we were still 70km from the finish.
On lap 3 Ryan rolled off the front on the Dyke. He really didn't go very hard, just sort of rolled away, but noone really followed. I was up in the top 8 so I accelerated up the outside and went to the front to pace, and make sure Ryan kept moving away. I had moments there considering strategies, as noone seemed inclined to chase yet.....thought maybe I should try a quick jump, see if anyone goes with me, then bridge up to Ryan if noone does. I decided against it, as I figured that might initiate an actual chase and screw Ryan's move up, and decided my best play would be to keep an eye on Jamie and John, and try to follow when they broke away to chase (which I figured was just a matter of time).


On lap 4 two more guys attacked on the gravel, but I stuck really close to Jamie/John, neither of whom went after them. On lap 5 I got caught out on the final straightaway and ended up going into the turn onto the gravel in bad position, about a 1/3rd of the way back in the pack. That was the lap the race exploded on as Jamie and John attacked hard from the front on the gravel and were able to gap the guys they had right on their wheels. The gravel sections were very selective, as drafting didn't help you much so it was basically who could put down the most power. As passing was extremely hard to do, chaos pretty much ensued as everyone who had the strength to follow their move wanted to get around and chase. I ended up turning back onto the road in a group of 5 that had weaved their way through most the riders who couldn't hold it. Jamie and John were about 75 yards up the road, and we all started pacelining trying to reel them back in. We were slowly bringing them back until one of the guys in the group went down on one of the 90 degree left turns. He was 2nd wheel, and I was 4th. The guy in between us was able to avoid to the inside, but I had nowhere to go, and found myself heading straight at a big hedge at 35km/h. "Aw, crap" I remember thinking.

Luckily, it was a relatively soft landing, and after I managed to get myself and my bike untangled I jumped back on, and everything seemed to be working fine. By that time, however, the race was 30-45 seconds up the road on me, and I'd been passed by quite a few other guys.

As I got going again another group of 5 or six guys were right there, so I started trading pulls with them. They turned out to be a bunch of wheel suckers, who would take 5 second pulls, but were happy to let me sit on the front and chase for 30 or 45 seconds at a time, then would actually follow my wheel when I would flick my elbow and move over for them to come through. These guys needed to go away. I came around the back, let two guys take pulls to get a little breather, then launched out from third wheel and passed them all on the center line. One guy held my wheel and came around me, but I passed him back and dropped him on the gravel.

After that it was 30 long kilometers of TTing by myself in no-mans land. I would just keep picking the next person in front of me and dig as hard as I could to catch them. One kid I caught from Devo on the gravel asked me he could sit on my wheel to the finish if he promised not to try to sprint against me in the end. Don't think so buddy. Luckily he wasn't able to hold on very long in the gravel.

The last lap I spent chasing two guys who were up the rd from me working together. I caught them on the last straightaway, had a little game of cat and mouse with them before the finish, and ended up beating one of them in the sprint. That turned out to be good enough to get me into the top 10, which I'm pretty happy with, all things considered.

I was also disappointed we could only get two members out to this race. We've got a fair bit of depth in our club for a 3/4 race, and plenty of guys who could have had a good showing.

Congrats to John and Jamie, who raced a perfect tactical race, and to Ryan for racing with pure guts and making it a Victoria podium sweep.

.

[Josh.E]

Results are posted: http://www.localride.ca/wp/2011/04/10/b ... 1-results/

Look at all the DNFs in the Cat 1/2 race - looks as if it was a slaughter.

Great report Ryan! Much respect to you and Josh.

yeah, we stuck around to watch. guys were just giving up and packing it in left and right. 80k in that was bad enough, not to mention the 120 they had to do.

Those results look a little messed in our race. The order looks right, but Ryan was alone when he finished, and the times and groupings look all wrong.

[jeremy]

sounds like "fun", great work guys. Ryan, glad to help out, I just hope my bike didn't get used to going so fast, cause it ain't gonna be ridden like that again anytime soon

[Roland]

Great work, but that race sounded horrible. I think I'm 'glad' I had a scheduling conflict.

Did you look kinda like this when you finished?

[Josh.E]

kinda

[RyanC]

Here's a set of four photos from the race. None of them shows me or Josh but you can see the lovely conditions. There are shots of both the 3/4 and 1/2 races. Good use of monochrome; reminds me of the video link Josh posted.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bronsphoto ... /lightbox/

The photo below however shows the last lap after Jon and Jamie caught me as we made our last pass of the dyke. You can see the grime on Jon's face is about 1/4" thick. My helmet is all that is visible of me over Jamie's shoulder.

R

[Josh.E]

great pics, that one of John and Jamie is awesome
for those who don't know John, he doesn't have a beard...

not like the one's from last year of smiling packs of riders enjoying a meander down the dyke path in the sunshine.

[Josh.E]

http://www.mrtimes.com/story_print.html ... 6&sponsor=

race story.

unless my maths are wrong, looks like the 3/4 race had a much faster average speed (37.5km/h) than the 1/2 race (33.3km/h) (although only 80km vs 110km)