Copperas Cove Road Race Recap 2011
Raced w/ the Category 5’s.
There were 51 riders in our field. The course was a lollypop w/ a 9 mile out to a clockwise 33 mile loop and then the return for a total of about 51 miles. I was told that there would be several attacks but the chances of them staying away would be small because no one would work together. This race is known for being won in the last 8 miles where there are some pretty decent climbs so I was going to bide my time until then and see what happens. My goal was to stay in the top 10-15 riders and not respond to the early attacks.
After a neutral start that seemed to last about 4-5 miles or so in a 2x2 pace line, the pace picked up when we hit the first climb. I just tried to stay towards the front and not worry about what was going on behind me. The pace was much faster than I was anticipating but I just hung on and tried to minimize my time at the front. There wasn’t a lot of organization at the front at this point. Guys would take long pulls and I just tried to avoid doing that. When guys wouldn’t pull through, a select few got pissed and started launching attacks to string out the field. It worked. On this stretch, someone was on my wheel when I heard “Hill Country Dough Boys” “I didn’t know you guys raced”. My response – “We don’t”. Turns out it was Rey’s buddy Wiley Mosely (who you may recognize from the Ass Dollar video). I had met him at the Dirt Derby in November when Rey introduced him to me after he had beaten Rey and won the cyclocross race that evening. Anybody that beats Rey is pretty damn fast. Rey also said something about him being all world in cyclocross and finished like top 20 at Cross Vegas. My response to him was “Aren’t you a little over-qualified to be racing with us”. I knew who’s wheel I was going to follow the rest of the day.
On the first turn onto the lollypop, I was in about position 15 when I heard some massive carnage behind me w/ bikes and riders hitting the deck. No idea what happened and I never turned around.
After the turn, the pace stayed high w/ about 10 of us doing the majority of the work at the front. At this point, I couldn’t avoid doing time at the front so I pulled through on each opportunity but made sure we rotated through. Wiley spent his fair share on the front. As we kept the pace high, I rotated through on one pull and slid to the back when I realized there were only 8 of us in the group at this point. We had “snapped the elastic” at some point and were now part of the breakaway. I was thankful for this because I didn’t want to ride w/ 51 riders the whole time since this was my first race. In the group of 8, there were 3 Spanish riders on different teams that formed an alliance and kept launching attacks to break us up. It was a little weird because we would go real hard, catch the break and then everyone would sit up and go easy until the next attack. I was pretty gassed at this point so I was merely reacting at this point and didn’t have the legs to launch a counter. The good news was that the Spanish were burning matches each time they did this (foreshadowing to the finish).
On one attack by the Spanish, they got away for a little bit. I was on Wiley’s wheel at this moment but none of us responded immediately. Finally, Wiley responded and I tried my hardest to hold his wheel but eventually got dropped. Then the remaining 3 riders behind me came by like a freight train and said “hop on”, so I did. I could see up ahead that Wiley finally caught them after what seemed like a 5 minute chase. It took the rest of us a good 5 more minutes to bridge but we eventually did. After that stretch, the attacks stopped until the last good hill. I learned a valuable lesson here and that is to not be on the front at the beginning of the hill. Guz had told me that but I experienced it real time. As we entered the climb with me on the front, one of the Spanish riders launched an attack. I responded but slid to the back for about ¾’s of the climb but ended up getting dropped along with one other guy. At this point, I remember what Dave Wenger had said in his racing tactics seminar. Some of his victories have come on days where he felt like he didn’t have it. You’ve got to dig deep to stay in contact and give yourself a shot. I worked together with this other guy and we eventually bridged the gap and all 8 of us were back together again.
Next few miles were fast but manageable when the 1K sign snuck up on us. I was planning on a 54 mile race as advertised and it came a little early. One of the Spanish riders launched another attack at about 750m but he didn’t have it and faded. We were stretched out in a pace line at this point and there was some disorganization with one of the race organizers sending us to the left hand side of the road when it turned out we had the whole road on the stretch. Riders were fading w/ the pace pretty intense and I was just hanging on to wheels as riders were fading. The finish line came before I knew it and I crossed in 5th. Wiley got 3rd. The guy who won was the guy that led that freight train chase group to bridge us on the Spanish attack that lasted the longest. We finished about 5 minutes in front of the peloton.
A little note about Guzman – he raced in the 40+ group which is notorious for being one of the strongest w/ a bunch of Cat 1’s – Cat 3’s and ended up finishing 6th. Awesome result.
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