Fawn-Grove Roubaix

Second race of the season. This was a race up in PA (USA) with a lot of gravel roads. Now this isn’t usually my style of racing. As my “results” indicate I need some long hills usually, and the flat, windy “power” type races are really not for me. But this was going to be one of those “classic” races… and with it being held on the same day as the Tour of Flanders, I couldn’t resist it.

The Race:
Well, I ate Humble Pie for about 2.5 hours. The gravel sections were covered in pretty deep gravel, and there were even downhill corners covered in Gravel. It was pretty hard core! I got put in the hurt-box pretty much from the gun. The first section of gravel was after just about a km or 2… and I was already in trouble. John Parks was out there with me again and he was looking pretty good.

I got dropped from the main group early. John then got a flat and before I knew it he had already caught back up to me. We formed a small 5 or 6 man group and chased hard. John was pretty impressive and was obviously using his experience from all the races he did in northern France. He picked the right moments, and did most of the work to pull our little group back up to the front group after about 20k of racing.

John Parks was looking really good, but 3 flats and he was out...

We were back up at the front with a fighting chance. Then we hit the gravel again, and I was slowly but gradually gapped AGAIN. After a while I had to watch a group of 10 ride away from me. John got another flat from the front group but wasn’t able to get back up to us again this time sadly. It took him a while to get a new wheel… and that one ALSO went flat… so after 3 flats, he was pretty much forced to DNF. Shame as he was looking on for a really solid performance!

I settled into a rhythm and spent most of the rest of the race in a 3 man group. I really wasn’t feeling great at all this weekend, and add in the fact that the race was not suited to me and there wasn’t much I could do. But I have a fair bit of experience in small groups, so we rolled on. We kept the front group of 8 or 9 in our sights for a while, but as I felt I was the one doing 80% of the work in the group, it quickly became clear we weren’t going to get back on, and so I relaxed a bit and the 3 of us shared the work a little more equally.

Our Group of 3: with New York Pez reader Colin Prensky on the right.

In the end we caught a couple of tired guys from the front group, and as we approached the line we were racing for 6th place. There was a fair bit of money for this race, so every place counted. Somehow one of the guys in our group let on that he was a track rider… which was a big mistake. I felt I was stronger than they were, and I had been planning to wait for the finish and outsprint them (or at least try with my pathetic sprinting abilities)… but when I found out he was a track rider, I knew I had NO chance of outsprinting him. So I attacked with 1k to go and held them off to the line, taking a nice little 6th place. Not a bad result. I didn’t really feel satisfied at the end of the day as I had suffered more than I felt I should have. I didn’t feel like I deserved that 6th place as I didn’t really go out and get it, I felt like I sat back, let the race control me rather than me controlling the race.

That all being said, it was a very fun race. One of those races that is horrible to do, but is fun to have done! Good race, fun day, and one to be remembered!
Thanks to John Neusbaum for taking me up to the race in his massive truck which was very spacious and comfortable on such a long trip.

What next? Not sure. I’ve been feeling pretty flat on the bike for the past 2 weeks. I think that until now I’ve been riding on borrowed fitness from AUS, and now my lack of proper training (due to the cold and shitty weather) is starting to kick in. So a nice weekend of riding whilst watch Paris Roubaix on TV hopefully, and then next weekend is the big 200k dirt race up in New York state with Floyd Landis and Time Johnson among others. That should be fun.