Sunday, August 18, 2013

BBC - GVCC Ultimate Club Championship - Aug. 11

Last Sunday brought a new race to fill in the void of local cycling events in late summer, the BBC-GVCC Ultimate Club Championship. A showdown of Buffalo Cycling vs. Rochester. Riding down with Steve G., we discussed some possible tactics - we had no idea how things would play out. Would the towns ride against each other, or would it be the more typical team tactics? I assumed that it would be the latter, with regional tactics only playing out later in the race - this proved incorrect. The course could be best described as "lumpy", with not much flat ground to be found. The hills were never too steep, but were stacked close enough together in some spots that a break should get established. The first couple laps were spent with the riders trying to get a feel for the course and their fellow racers. A couple tentative attacks went off, but came back without much struggle. Then some more serious attacks started getting thrown down, largely from the outnumbered Rochestarians. However, Buffalo was working as a team to chase down each attack. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to want to cooperate or counter, it appeared as though they wanted the group to stay together as much as possible and let their strength in numbers play out in a final sprint. Rochester racers (especially Bob Canino, Pete Pelychaty, Paul Mattison, Steve Goebel, and myself) realized the tactics being used and stayed aggressive, especially on the hills, to try and break up the group. Steve Goebel attacked hard at the bottom of one of the hills, and managed to split the group up. Unfortunately this hard effort also spit him off the back although he continued to race and finished not far behind the group. With half a lap to go, Buffalo finally woke up and started attacking - where had that been the previous 5 1/2 laps? Outnumbered and tiring from previous efforts, Rochester tried to cover and join as many efforts as possible. With a mile or so left, a Buffalo racer snuck off the front with what appeared to be the winning attack. He was kept in check through some hard work by Rochester riders, and I found myself in 3rd wheel as we hit the final climb to the finish line with 200m to go. I gave it everything I had on the final climb and managed to pass the lead rider with 20-30m to go to take the win! A great day for Dorschel and Rochester. And to top it off, a great fund raiser for Mike Coyle's family.

No comments:

Post a Comment