Race Report: Poolesville Road Race

By Martin • June 29th, 2009

pville Ahh Poolesville. The Paris-Roubaix of the Washington Metro region. It’s not a particularly difficult race in a technical sense — no real hills, mostly rollers — but it remains an epic contest because the winners not only finish first, but actually finish. The 1.5-mile gravel section is indiscriminate in who it forces to hit the deck or flat-out, leaving those who finish gleeful not only because they stayed in contention but because they stayed upright.

The Short: I won the Cat 4 and we placed four guys in the Top 10 in the Cat 3/4. We were aiming for a repeat of the Tour of Washington County — where we won both the Cat 3 and Cat 4 road races — but it wasn’t to be.

The Long: In the Cat 4, Kevin, Grayson, Matt, Dan, Adam and I lined up at the start. The first lap was uneventful as the peloton nervously surveyed the course. Unfortunately, Kevin was felled early on by a flat on the gravel section. He was joined by Tom B. from Squadra Coppi, a strong finisher who was in top contention to win. Having been our go-to guy, we quickly re-adjusted our strategy for the backup — me.

Half-way through the second lap, a brave AABC soul launched off the front in what seemed like a futile attempt at a solo break. As he started gaining on the field, I got worried that he might actually stay away. I made a decision to chase after him, spending the better part of a full lap trying to close what had become a rather large gap. Feeling my matches starting to fizzle, I was nothing short of relieved to see Nate Miller from Squadra Coppi bridge up to me and offer to start working together. We did, slowly gaining on the solo AABC rider. After the second time through the gravel, I looked back to see the field closing in on us. “We’re done,” I thought. But not a moment too soon two NCVC riders jumped up to us, and we quickly started a rotating paceline, caught the renegade AABC rider and set in to a steady pace over the remaining two laps.

As we approached the end of the race, none of us knew how much time we had on the field — our moto-ref wasn’t giving us time checks. We soldiered on — four of us, having dropped one of the NCVC guys — keeping the rotations steady. When we turned left into the final stretch, I knew I had gas left in the tank to contest the sprint. The key was to do what I had never before done — remain patient and not assume that I have 500 meters worth of sprint in my legs. (BikeJam and Greenbelt proved that I most certainly do not.) We crossed the 200 meters to go line and I took my shot, bursting ahead and hoping for the best. I took a quick look behind me and saw Nate closing, but knew I had just enough of a lead to take the win. The brave AABC rider took third, NCVC fourth. The field came in about 1:30 later. Grayson took 11th, Matt 12th. Adam rolled in with the field, and Dan came in a short while later, victim of a crash on the gravel. He apparently did some crazy kung fu moves while lying on the floor that spared the riders behind him the trouble of running right into him.

The race was particularly satisfying not only because I walked away with the win (and the awesome rocks-in-a-glass-case trophy), but because four of us managed to make the break stick. Just as we did in Murad, the riders in the break selflessly abandoned all pretenses of winning to share the workload and actually keep the gap on the field alive. Props to AABC for launching the break to begin with.

Tim R. and Kevin do the Cat 3 write-up the justice it deserves; head over to their blogs to read up on how the race evolved. Though we didn’t take the win, we managed four Top 10 finishes. Not bad, boys.

Jonathan again went solo into the Masters 35+ race, lining up against guys like Battley’s Chuck Hutcheson and Immediate Mortgage’s Ramon Benitez. I’m always impressed with the level of racing at the Masters level, and extra props to Jonathan for continuing to face these guys on his lonesome. Gimme 5 years and I’ll be right there with you.

Chris Schmidt — a prior winner of this race — joined a small field for the 1/2/3 race. From what I hear, the race pretty much shattered in a million pieces, with guys rolling in solo with many-minute-long gaps between them. Chris finished 11th in a field that was whittled down by two-thirds once it was all said and done.

Thanks to NCVC for all the hard work that went into the race. In good fashion it lived up to its epic billing.

Pictures of the 3/4 race here; a few of the 4 race here.