Tour of Hilltowns Cat 4

Hi all,
rode the Tour of Hilltowns Cat 4 today.

Course: 57 miles, with a long climb (about 5miles) at about 10% coming after 20 miles or so. Then fairly flat untill 10 miles to go where theres about 5miles of slight uphill folllowed by about 5 miles of steady low gradient (5-6% i’d guess) to the finish. A hairpin corner at 200m to go.

Today’s race; rolled out with John, Steve, Jamie and Julian – good team presence.
The first 20miles were pretty flat but the roads were poor with several holes and there were 4 similataneous blow-out punctures at one point. I tried to move up to the front 15-20 before the climb to try to stay with the lead group in the event of a split on the climb (thanks for the tip in your email posting john!). I went up the climb in the front 10 and crested the hill in the front 5. We then went fast off the summit and when it was clear that we (about 25 riders) had a gap, a number of us organised our efforts at the front and kept the pace up. We maintained the gap.

The flat section was fairly uneventful, a few attacks, but there was a headwind which doomed the attacks to failure.

The final 10 miles were tricky. As soon as we were going uphill, there were repeated accelerations at the front of the group to split it apart. I held in the front 10, but with about 5 miles to go, I started to cramp in both calves. Maybe i had pulled too much earlier. from this point on, any out of the saddle effort lead to a cramp so all i could do was spin a low gear and hope for the best. with 1km to go the attacks came harder and i just kept spinning, but couldnt respond with any out of the saddle effort. I came around the final hairpin turn and was in 3rd. 200m to go and I could only keep spinning a low gear and couldnt really sprint. A couple of riders caught me as i limped/sprinted over the line.

My result was initially posted as 5th and the third MA rider – meaning bronze state champ medal! I came back to pick up my prize and was told that there was a protest and i had been moved to 6th by a threshold rider!!!!!!! ! so i dropped out of the medals. I reviewed the film of the finish with the officials and I thought we were pretty well tied but they reconed there was more of his tire over the line. oh well….

anyway, still really happy with 6th place!!!

Colm