Saturday's Tilles race turned out fairly well. The upper 30 degree temperatures and strong winds made for some chilly racing but nothing awful. Thankfully, the rain stayed away. Steadily drying, but still damp, roads from earlier light rain was all the moisture we saw in the Master's race.
This was my first Master's race in a couple years. Mesa was typically stacked with Russ, Tracy and Ethan while most of the local teams had representation. In addition to me, we had Chris, Evan and Mike.
The 30 minute +6 race started steadily, unlike the way Tuesday Nites have been starting. After settling in, there were a number of repeated attacks. Some were more effective than others, but no one was getting too much breathing room. O'Neal and his pink stickered Zipps had been aggressive most of the race and eventually opened a gap with Ethan and Mark from SLCC that the pack was slow to counter about 25 minutes into the race. Andy from Gateway and Marijn eventually took the initiative to chase. Our team was not represented so I jumped and joined the move.
Mark dropped off from the lead group and joined our chase. The four of us worked well but were unable to shut down the lead duo. I finally looked back with three laps to go and had to do a double-take. Where was the pack? Most of the teams were represented in one of the two breaks so they must have shut down the race completely. Andy began sitting on with two laps to go. I was willing to sacrifice a place or two to try and make sure the pack didn't come back to us. No cat and mouse games for me. The three of us continued to rotate and I led into the headwind. As we went through the penultimate turn Andy and Marijn attacked. I rose out of the saddle but didn't have nearly enough in the legs to match the acceleration and settled for trying to stay ahead of Mark. My ears were pealed for any noise from behind but heard no whoosh of wheels. I looked back with about 50m to go and safely snagged 5th place.
My strategy for the 3/4 race was to sit in the middle of the pack for the first part of the race and gauge how my legs felt after the first race. Everything went to plan. The race was moving at a good pace but did not feel terribly hard and I was well placed in the upper half, moving up when I wanted.
Approximately one-third of the race had passed when there was a bumping of shoulders just ahead of me. James Nelson went down with one or two others as I touched the brakes and headed toward the grass. I just about stopped before hitting a guy with the front wheel and tipped over. The incident was minor and extending my hand to catch myself was enough prevent me from hitting the turf.
That incident was minor but essentially marked the end of my race. Being put in at the pack of the pack made moving up difficult. The rear of the field was just that little bit more bottled up and congested. Places where I was able to move up before the crash were crowded enough that I didn't want to try and squeeze through.
Riding back there also put a good deal of squirrelly maneuvers into view that made me cautious of trying anything. In particular, DRJ rider 63(9?) was all over the place, dodging here and there with twitchy moves. At least five people from multiple teams commented on the guy both during and after the race. Getting near the guy was scary.
My plan to attack with 1.5 to go was scuttled by my inability to move up. The last lap was just a case of sitting on and rolling across the line safe and sound.
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My Roubaix picks did okay. Hoste finished a solid 6th. Devolder's finished 7th and his attack at Mons-en-Pevele softened up the small lead group for Boonen to whittle the leaders down to just three. About all that can be said of my third pick, Ignatiev, is that he managed to finish way back in 109th. But, he finished. My curiosity pick, Duclos-Lasalle, also finished but in 97th place.
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"Frenchman Pierrick Fédrigo (Bouygues Télécom) succeeded in winning the 40th edition of the Tour du Limousin on Friday one year after he missed out on the overall victory by just one second."
"Dutchman Erik Dekker (Rabobank) saw his chance and also got across the gap, forming a group of 13 in front."
Are you offended? Is righteous indignation welling up inside you? No? You are nothing but an insensitive oaf.
Have you heard the minor controversy that happened during the webcast of this weekends Masters golf tournament? Reporter Bobby Clampett called one of the golfers "a Chinaman". As a result of the quote, Clampett was not part of the webcast for the remainder of the tournament. Nevermind that the golfer, Liang-Wen Chong is from China.
Why can Pierrick Fedrigo be called a Frenchman or Erik Dekker be called a Dutchman but you cannot call Liang-Wen Chong a Chinaman? Just what term is supposed to used for a man from China? Chinian? The term Asian doesn't explain his nation of origin. Oriental is out of favor in these politically correct times and suffers from the same problems of ambiguity as Asian.
And, what exactly, is offensive about the term Chinaman? Seriously. There are several terms, which I won't list here, that a person from China might consider derogatory. As a person of Polish descent I can understand, but is calling a man from China a Chinaman truly offensive? Not in my opinion.
