by Rachel Weaver

This was my first time racing Battenkill and I’d been training since January with my sights set on this as my first “A” race of the season. With 66 registered riders, my goal was to at least finish in the top 20. Most of the road races in W. Pa are “open”, which means all classes race together.

My experience has been like this: we all roll out from the start, the pack splits up immediately on the first climb and I end up riding by myself. I was hoping with an all Cat 4 race, I would have a better chance of at least racing with a group.

The first climb came quickly and some people were shot out of the back immediately. I stayed with the lead group, however on the second climb, I fell back a bit. I worked hard to catch back on but unfortunately, when I finally caught back on, it was up hill again and I couldn’t stay with the group. So I found myself in a familiar situation, riding by myself.

I think I rode about 35 miles alone and in very windy conditions. I was not real happy with that but I rode a pace I was comfortable with and just settled in. I started to get fatigued around mile 48 and it was around that time that a group of 4 women caught me.

We pacelined along the flats for a few miles and I tried to take short pulls and rest in hopes of being able to tackle the last climb with some energy left in my legs.
On the last climb, the group picked up the pace but I had nothing left in my legs to respond. The group rode away and there was nothing I could do. It was a very frustrating feeling. I rolled into the finish line in exactly 20th place. Not how I envisioned my race but I did meet my goal.

Lessons learned from Battenkill:

• It’s not harder than the Hilly Billy Roubaix
• Next year, I’m using a 27 tooth cassette!

Since we didn’t know how many team members were going to show up, the original plan was to send Kate and Holly Forsyth out to attack with around five laps to go, leaving Lauren and myself to try an attack with two laps to go. But since so many SCE ladies showed up, we changed it up at Suzanne’s suggestion and were going to try to send out one teammate at a time to attack throughout the race. Once the race started, ProGraphics took the lead immediately and the SCE ladies did not do much pulling (if any) for the first fifteen laps. ProGraphics rotated the pulling duties between their teammates and stayed on the front.

Gudrun and Kate attacked individually with less than ten laps to go, forcing the ProGrahics team (now three strong with the addition of Grey) to give chase. Kate, riding her strongest race this season, put the hurt on ProGraphics by attacking with five laps to go and they gave chase. Kate fell back a bit after her attack.

I tried to force a chase with three laps to go but I could not get a breakaway. I pulled off on the last lap. Kate was able to rejoin the group and help Lauren, who was staying put behind ProGraphics in the last few laps, sprint to a second place finish. Way to go Lauren!

Overall, I think our strategy worked well. Attacks by individual teammates always resulted in a response by ProGraphics. Who attacks and when we attack is going to depend on who has the “legs” that week (Holly F. no more hill repeats on Mondays!) and how many SCE ladies show up.

Suzanne suggested and I agree, we should take turns on who is the “protected” teammate for the race. We can discuss it ahead of time as to who is feeling good and who is tired and go from there.

We certainly have an advantage with our sheer number of teammates. We can afford to attack more than any other team or group on the track and make the others work to catch up and hopefully tiring them out in the process!