Blue Hills Report

wanted to do this while it was fresh in my head. I also posted it on my blog:
I had many reasons to not do Blue Hills today: the whole bottom bracket fiasco, the chain-skip on the Gazelle, it was raining and cold, I got maybe 2 hours of sleep last night (not for lack of trying…), and being my first race of the year, I really had little to no expectations. So, after deciding to ditch my glasses (couldn’t see shit with them on, but kept getting water and debris in my eyes with them off…) I lined up near the back of the cat 4 field. There were 75 preregistered, but clearly many had opted to stay in their warm beds. Refunds Now had a pretty strong showing: Graham, Casey, Radu, Mark G., Michael, Tony and myself. I felt pretty unsure of my form and my ability to stay upright in the rain, so I took it easy at or near the back of the pack for the first couple laps. It really didn’t present me many problems. I actually wondered if we were in a neutral start well after the race had started. Radu was off the front for much of the first lap, with Michael keeping the pace under control at the front. The hill was definitely over-hyped…I only knew we were on it because some people started struggling. (I stayed in the big ring the whole day…) I looked over at one rider just in front of me and noticed he had a triple. That made me a little happy to see that I wasn’t the only one. But then he shifted INTO his granny ring. Clearly not his day. He also sounded like he was having a heart attack. I felt really good on the climb and started reevaluating my potential performance (my goal all along was to not get dropped and finish with the pack). On the second time up the climb, a few more people got ditched, and I moved up mid-field. I didn’t work very hard to maintain my position and was back a the back of the pack (which was a bit smaller) when we hit the climb for the third time. Again, really felt very good on the climb, and started watching the proceedings a bit more carefully. Sometime about then, the downpour started. The last lap was absolutely soaking. When the final climb started I moved up as quickly as possible so that I was probably only 10 riders back as we came to what I thought was the last part of the climb (with only about 500 feet or so from the top to the finish). Graham was up in front of me, Radu was behind me, and Casey was, I think somewhere near me. I felt fidgety and almost jumped myself. Then a rider jumped from one of the first three positions. I think that all of us in this front group were feeling pretty fresh. Graham led the chase, and I was able to respond for a bit, but ran out of gas - this is where a little more interval training and top-end would have help immensely. (If I had jumped when I thought about it, I probably would have finished a few places higher, but still wouldn’t have placed top-ten.) Radu nipped me just before the line probably at about 20th or so, Graham placed top-10, and Casey placed just behind Graham. Michael and Mark weren’t too far behind in the next group. I think I was essentially right at the back of the decisive split, and I’m pretty happy with that, for my first race of the year.

On another note, I don’t think that the Gazelle is responsible for the sudden crap-out on the Circle A’s bottom bracket (see Khalid’s comment yesterday…) I think that the Circle A must have some sort of weather forecasting ability and decided to crap out all on its own so that it could sit this one out in the nice warm comfort of the house, while the Gazelle and I went out for a thorough soaking.

---brent