The Tour of America's Dairyland series made a stop in Greenbush, WI this past Friday, June 26. A surprising number of xXxers made it to the road race with the largest contingent set to do the Masters 4/5 race (5 in total). My race (Masters 4/5) was a 40 miler made up of a 10 mile loop that went up and down for most of the loop but with nothing too severe. It was an excellent course and the weather, while a bit hot, was nearly perfect.
Matt Grosspietsch, William Pankonin, Herb Seitz, Dave Thomas and I all lined up for this race with about 30 other very eager mostly Wisconsin riders who undoubtedly had more hills in their training than any of us. Despite that fact, I'd have to say we held our own admirably. The unanimous team agreement was that William was best positioned for a top finish so our strategy was to help William if we were in the position to do so.
The first lap went off rather calmly with the entire field staying together. There was some bumping and grinding going on and some hairy descents with loose gravel, and a couple deceptive hills that didn't look like much, but turned out to be killers in disguise. Once we made our first lap, everyone seemed to settle in. The second lap was just like a casual group ride where nobody seemed to want to risk a move. The only casualty was Herb who dropped out with a mechanical problem. Everyone was waiting for lap 3 or 4 for the fireworks. Sure enough, on lap 3, there was a small break that William made it into. Matt and I were in the chase group near the front when we decided it would be best to try and control this group and do what we could to discourage its progress but unfortunately, they we able to pull the group back together before the end of lap 3.
On the last lap, we rolled through the first corner with entire field pretty much intact. Obviously, someone was going to make a move, but oddly enough, there was no decisive break. Instead, the field just kind of drifted into two groups after the first uphill section. I think a lot of us were starting to feel it in our legs. Fortunately, William was in the lead group. Unfortunately, none of us were there to help him. Matt and I, once again were in the chase group, but this time, the chase group did not succeed in catching up. There were about 5 or 6 of us at the front driving the bus and we were flying! The thought crossed my mind that we better not push too hard or we may start catching the lead group. With 2 large hills to go the lead group came into view, but they were far enough ahead that it was clear we wouldn't catch them.
I took that second to the last hill aggressively and lead it over the top knowing that the last hill was one of the aforementioned deceptive killer hills and I had better try and lose some riders before I get there because that hill really sucks! There is a flat section between these two hills that I decided I would nail it hard and try and drop somebody, anybody. Bad plan. All I accomplished was dragging them along at 25+ mph to the last hill where they promptly blew by me. I must have lost 5 or more places on that f***ing hill. So the race ended up with William finishing 9th, Matt 14th and me finishing 18th, about minute back of the lead group. It's been my favorite race to date. There is a lot I would have done differently in retrospect, but I'm still learning to read a race. Congratulations to William for his top ten finish! Congratulation to the rest of us for just finishing the race.