Chesco RR (States)

Wednesday morning I headed down into Chester County again for the road race of the Chesco GrandPrix, just in time to see the end of Sabina's race, congrats to her for medaling on such a tough day.

The pavement was so hot, that the tar patches were swallowing up cyclists and officials like dinosaurs in the tar pits.  Seriously, one official was stuck to the road, and several bike tires had large sections of PA-82 stuck to them.

The Victory brewing beer tap truck was there again, but whew, it was too hot to think about beer.  We had some 50 riders start in the 66 mile Cat 3 event, and only 30 finished.  The Pro/1/2 had even worse attrition, over 92 miles of racing!

It wasn't a race where anyone could make anything happen, the race just "happened" and we went along with it, powerless against the oppressive heat and course.  There were several break attempts, but nobody could stay away.  With about 20 miles left to go, we had a good group rotating to chase one of those doomed breaks, when about 9 of us found ourselves off the front.  It wasn't so much that we rode away, but rather the rest of the field was probably too exhausted to close any gaps.  Mainly, me and a QCW guy did most of the work, everyone else had excuses "I'm totally cramped up", "I've got nothing left".  He attacked once really hard on a hill, and I just managed to follow him.  We came into the last km with about 4-5 of us left in the lead group.  There are two "stair step" climbs in the last km, he attacked hard on the first one, and a Pawling Cycle guy went also, it was too much too soon, so I just rode tempo up the first one.  They had a big gap, and I figured I was doomed to 3rd place again, but between the hills, I accelerated, and waited until the second hill to launch hard, I carried my speed up and over, and passed the two leaders who were completely cooked, and managed to take the win.

The final break.

Thanks to Carolyn Worthington for the photos.

Pic of the final from Julie Elliot.