SCE men soar at Zoar!
Zoar Road Race
Cat 3-4
Zoar, OH
August 8, 2010
By EJ Hubstenberger III
Doug, Mike, Jim, and I ventured to the Zoar road race on 8.8.2010 with a good core group of riders for the CAT 3-4 race. It was to be 4 laps or 40 mile race which had some nice flat sections and two climbs, of which the last climb was about 3 miles from the finish and would eventually, decide the final selection for that day’s race. The race started off pretty tame and a lone rider did attack on the first climb of lap 1, but was quickly brought back into the group by a hard effort put forth by myself and a few other riders from Stark velo and Freddie Fu. At the top of that climb, John Cotter of Freddie Fu and Mike shot out of the group like a cannonball and got a pretty sizeable gap before being joined by a few other riders in the second breakaway attempt of the day. They were eventually also brought back into the group mid way through the first lap.
On lap 2, Mike Mihalik of Freddie Fu and another rider attacked on the first climb and got away until the start of the last flat section before the second climb. A rider from MVC and I attacked the group and bridged to Mike and the other rider. I was feeling pretty good at that point, but the MVC rider blew up in the break and Mike barely had enough time to recover from his attack. We managed to stay away until part way up the final climb when the groupetto caught us.
Lap 3 was pretty uneventful as the pace slowed to about a crawl, as everyone was waiting for the attacks to come on the fourth and final lap on the climbs. Racing when it is slow like that lends itself to be prone to crashes, since people are more apt to not pay attention as close as they would be if the pace was high.
Lap four, the final lap, was pretty much as expected. The pace was quickened and there were a few attacks on the first climb, but the group pretty much managed to stay together until the base of the final climb. I have to give Doug mad props as he put in a monster pull to keep the pace high and deliver the rest of his teammates in good shape to the base of the final climb. The pace was high on the last climb and then there was “the crash.” It appeared that a rider stood up abruptly and threw his bike back into the front wheel of the rider right behind him causing about 10 or so riders to go down in a heap of tangled bodies and bikes. The SCE riders all managed to avoid that nonsense, and so the fast decent to the finish started.
The group was now split into 20 or so riders and as we approached the finish it was getting a little sketchy, so I saw an opening on the left hand side of the road and went for it just as the sprint started. Mike was sprinting like a man possessed and managed to nab second place. I came across the line in ninth place and Jim was seventeenth.
All in all, I feel that the team had a plan, and worked well to achieve it by getting all of us home safe and place riders in the top ten of the race. I did overhear a few riders talking about the race afterwards and to quote them, “Man that Steel City team from Pittsburgh was all over that race. It seemed like they were the only ones that wanted to race today”
ENOUGH SAID……………………………………
Full race results here.
