ABD Fall Fling weekend #1

The annual ABD cycling club “Fall Fling” – a 4 race series for those of us who either didn’t get enough of bike racing from February to September or those of us who are just getting started, like my friend Steve Parrish who is doing his first races of the year.  As Steve says, he likes to “ease into things”.  This past weekend was nothing about easy.

Saturday we did a crit on a nondescript course in an industrial Park in West Chicago.  No terrain and no corners to speak of, I fully expected a bunch sprint and a fast race.  As it turns out the latter was true, a fast race at 26.5 mph avg but the bunch sprint part of the equation didn’t materialize.  After only 4 laps, I counter attacked a move that was caught and not a real threat to go anywhere.  After the attack I found myself off the front with RobosMACK and R. Kelly.  RobosMACK is a strong TT rider and R. Kelly is one of the fastest sprinters in the state.  We worked our asses off and for the first half of the race all we could manage was a 15 second gap.  Eventually, chases in the pack gave up and we stretched our lead to over half a lap.

I attacked the two others with 5 laps to go and got a decent gap but couldn’t hold on for more than a lap and a half. Once we rejoined R. Kelly was determined to take no more pulls and RobosMACK was getting gassed, plus his saddle was loose and he was riding nose down at about a 30 degree angle…ouch.  I chided R. Kelly into taking some pulls and we maintained our lead as some chasers from the field closed us down to about 30 seconds.

Last lap:  I attacked into turn 3 and dropped RobosMACK but R. Kelly was right on me.  I was forced to lead out the sprint which I did out of turn 4.  R. Kelly came by me on on my right and nudged into me, which was okay but a bit strange I thought since it was just the two of us and we had literally 4 lanes of open road.  As soon as he got by me with about 150 to go he swung hard left and crossed my path forcing me to hit the brakes and stop racing.  I coasted across the line with my hand up gesturing to the officials and said “Did you see that?”  The response was “Yeah we saw it and they were already talking about whether or not to relegate R. Kelly for taking an irregular line in the sprint.  The rules state that in the final 300 meters of a sprint the rider “must maintain a straight line”.

For the record, I never lodged a protest with the officials.  When asked by them if R. Kelly’s sudden chop to the left impeded my finish I told them the truth, “yes”.  R. Kelly’s response was to “respectfully disagree” and he said if I thought I would have beat him in the sprint then maybe I’d have a right to protest.  Again, I didn’t protest – the chop was so blatantly obvious, I didn’t have to lodge a protest – and whether I would have re passed R. Kelly isn’t the issue, the issue is that he chopped me when he didn’t need to and forced me to hit the brakes and stop pedaling.  So, R. Kelly was relegated and I was given the win.

R. Kelly was pissed after the race “I’ve been racing 28 years and I’ve never protested a finish” he told me.  When I tried to explain to him that I didn’t protest the results, the officials took it upon themselves to relegate him for a douchebag move, he stuck his fingers in his ears and walked around his car fuming.  Very mature.  The next day, BurnersMACK told me that R. Kelly is famous for doing stuff like this in sprints and has been in some legendary crashes over the years, mostly due to his own actions.  This I did not know prior to yesterday.

Day two of the Fall Fling was a road race around the Tuckaway Golf Club south of Chicago.  The course was a rolling but not overly challenging 6 mile loop, but add the 15 mph wind from the south and we were in for a shell-fest.  Some guy in a generic blue jersey blasted off the start line and was joined by Hackl from the PYOC team.  Within a quarter of a mile we were racing single file at over 30 per.  as we hit the cross wind, a group of guys kept the pressure on by rotating a pace line at the front keeping the pace close to 30 per.  It stayed this way for 3 laps and every time I thought the pace was slowing, I attacked.  I remember looking at my speedo when we crossed the finish line beginning lap 4 and we were at 27.4 mph and my avg speed indicator was pointing down!  By this time, we had drilled the up hill cross wind section and split the filed into a group of 10 guys.

With 3 to go I attacked hard after a break containing my team mate Stone Pony and Tom Doughty was reeled in.  Doughty by the way had done the 50+ masters race of 42 miles earlier, won his age group and was now animating the 48 mile 40+ race that was BLAZING fast!.  Quite simply a studly effort.  Our 10 rider split had passed the 1,2,3 field which started 5 minutes ahead of us on about our 5th lap.

Anyway, I countered Stoney’s move and was joined by BKsMACK, Brian Harris and Ricardo Otero.  Brilliant.  I’m in a move with the 3 fastest finishers in the race, but RobosMACK wasn’t in the move and I needed to put ground on him so I rolled with it.  I tried one attack after the move was formed but I had little in the tank.  I’d ridden 20 miles fairly hard before the race – living in the city, I need to get miles when I can get them – and was nearing the end of my rope.  And, as anyone could have predicted the finish order was Harris, Otero BKsMACK, Druber.  But, I stretched my lead in the omnium and that’s a good thing.

Next week is the TT and a circuit race.