Lost Nations Road Race - AAVC vs MVW
I really dig these club races - it was a bit of a commute, but totally worth it!
The course was a scenic 20k loop with a few rolling climbs and howling crosswinds. Results should be posted soon, but here's my recollection. Josh pulled like an ox much of the first lap with a few sporadic attacks from Lathrup, Red Bike, and MVW. Everything was covered pretty well with Kyle doing quite a lot of work to pull things back. On lap 2 Harvey went loco and attacked solo into the headwind. He sat 10-15 seconds ahead of the pack for most of that section in what was almost universally agreed to be a bad idea. Things came back together at the corner and there was a counter attacks from Lathrup or MVW which Kyle covered and got about a 5 second break. When that came back Danny and one MVW rider went and got about a 20 second gap. Danny rode the MVW guy off his wheel and before he knew it there was a MVW freight train chasing him down. The pace was ehm "spirited" and the gap closed to 5 or 10 seconds until we got to the hills and Danny pulled away again. It finally came back together after turn 3 when Danny was caught on one of the climbs just before the finish straight. Will Haig and an MVW guy countered, but the group was ready to chase and everyone was together at the line. Stephen Doll took the prime and set a new lap record on Strava (24.2 mph average with descents in the low 40's). After the sprint, things calmed down for lap 3. Lap 3 was incredibly boring until Josh attacked in the crosswinds and went up the road with another MVW guy (~10 second break). When a second MVW guy attacked and tried to close the gap Harvey came to the front and put his final effort in. He closed the gap, but got dropped on a climb with an MVW and Red Bike guy. From here I'm going by what I heard at the race and what I can see on the Strava flyby. William Haig came to the front to keep the pace up and ended up dropping a quarter of the field until he fell back to finish with Harvey. Then it was Danny's turn on the climbs - he came to the front and continued to drop guys off the back until the last kicker. The Maumee leadout train fired up about 400m out when most of us had already burned our matches, but Stephen Doll miraculously crossed over and sprinted for 2nd on a bike from the 70's. Despite all rumors, his wheels did not fall off. Rounding our the top five there was Justin Kahle (1st - MVW), Alan Zoltowski (3rd - Lathrup), Nick Mossing (4th - MVW), and Jeff Nixon (5th - MVW). Then came Kyle (7th) and Danny (12th), Josh (13th), Tyler (14th), Will (15th), and Harvey (16th) (official results). MVW won 2016, but I attribute it greater numbers in the peloton. Overall it was a great team effort and one hard race!
For the B race, we had Rob Shoemaker, Matt Raezler, Ken Tsang, Andrew Wallis, and Juan. This was Andrew's first race and Ken's first race in 10 years. Rob and Andrew were the first to drop. This was presumably the same time Juan decided he should have been in the A race and solo'd off the front. Juan stayed away for two laps to win. Matt and Ken were like "REALLY!?" and that was that. Watching the finish, it was hard to believe Juan was away for a full two laps. The whole peloton was only 5-10 seconds behind him when he crossed the line. Matt held off his group with a mighty effort for 5th and Ken (9th) rolled in with them. Andrew - poor Andrew - was lost to winds. I rode back to find him and my water bottle when a saw a great horned owl flying across the road in the twilight. That was pretty cool. Also, random. Okay, nice job guys!
