Wente Race Report

I raced the Cat 3's at Wente Vineyard Road Race on Saturday. Four 15-mile laps, plus a little extra, for a total of 66 miles. The climbing was about 1100 per lap for 4400 feet. I always think of climbing in units of Mt. Diablo, so that's racing up 1.3 Diablos... Le Ouch. Most of that climbing comes on one hill which is followed by a big decent, some rollers, another slight decent, and mostly flat to comlete the loop. Wind was bout 7-8 mph, not a huge factor but a little discouraging if you stuck your nose out or helpful when it was at your back.

I was happy to race the 3's to avoid the regular beatings I get in the M1/2/3. I was even more happy, I could convince my buddy Jason pictured at bottom to drive down and race with me.

The first time up the big climb was hard but well within limits. The second time up was a different story. Harder than the fist, but again not out of bounds. Peoples were getting shelled off the back, and given my poor position toward the back I had to constantly move up to keep from getting gapped. I was one of the last ones to stay with the peloton that was now half it's original 80. The reason it was going so hard was these chaps above were going off the front. Two Limeys, a Spine, and Big Red. The photo is toward the top of the climb and you can see in the next photo that the peloton is not far behind.

On the big decent I weaved in and out of riders to the front to be in position to start attacking once off the hill and past a 90 degree hairpin corner. On that corner we were told the break had 35 seconds. I launched the first of what would be many attacks. My goal was to get a break and catch the other group. No one would pull through so I sat up. Then a guy says "let's get organized and pull this back", everyone says yeah, he takes a pull and again no one will pull through. A small handful of us are willing to work. I've got no desire to drag the whole field of free loaders back, so I keep attacking and checking to see if we can get a little break to stick. To no avail... not sure what everyone else is thinking because they haven't got team mates up the road and they're not pulling through. They're basically just gumming up the works and I'm not sure they even have a clue about it. By the end of the 2nd lap, the efforts of a small group of us who are either trying to chase, or trying to make a break (me and maybe one other), have brought the field to within catch of the break.

And here occurs the decisive moment of the race for me; It comes and goes without me knowing it at the time. When we got close to the break all of us who had been working let up. The collective thought was we had gotten close enough and let some other sap do the work to finish it off, or that we were close enough that we would absorb them on the climb which was approaching. A funny thing happened though when we came off the front... our pack slowed visibly and the break moved away again. It was at that decisive moment that I should have tried to bridge because I think I could have gotten across there. The break would go on to become the winning four with a Limey taking first, Big Red second, and the other Limey and Spine third and fourth. Fifth doesn't matter to me in this case because the break was never caught.

The rest of the story: After we came so close to the break without catching them, we proceeded to the climb which was a lot more relaxed than the two times before. The rest of the lap was a repeat of the prior with me and a small group of others trying to form a break. A couple of times it looked like we might have something promising but guys would not pull through hard enough so we couldn't make it stick. The fourth time up the hill, I paid for all my prior attacks and was dropped. I wasn't far off though and did my best to keep close. I was pretty sure I could catch back on maybe on the decent or just after. I collected 4 or 5 other stragglers on the decent. One of them a Webcor who I could tell would be strong on the flats with me. We started a rotation at the bottom of the hill to chase the peloton which was close. But then my chain dropped and I had some trouble getting it back on. When I finally did, my group was a little too far off for me to catch quickly. I watched as Webcor dropped my group, and another fell of the back who I then passed. Once the group was shattered like that, it was much harder to get back on. I think Webcor eventually made it. I was slowly catching the other three but couldn't close it and after about 10 minutes started losing ground to them. At this point my race was over except to finish my TT to the line.

Oh, and I saw Levi!

Photo Credits: www.ronaldmariano.com