More on Ottawa

It was a veritable troop that headed up to Ottawa for the weekend. There were the four racers: Matt, Thorben, Stig and myself, from Jet Fuel. Then Thorben’s wife, who was also racing, grabbed a ride with us and finally my sister decided she, and her dog, would come up for the weekend. All in all it made for a great time.

With the racing on Saturday starting at 7:50 in the morning there wasn’t much in the way of sleep to be had Friday night, nor was it possible to eat early enough in the morning to avoid stomach complications; I wasn’t the only one that felt like I was having a visit from the ghost of breakfast past during the race.

The funniest thing about the race in the Gat’s is trying to get to the start line on time. It isn’t like other races where each category lines up one by one. At this race everyone is lining up one behind another and getting past everyone and finding the right category can be a challenge. As happened last year there were a few guys that missed the start; Thorben only made it to our category as they were counting down 5, 4, 3 ….

Held on a course with a fairly decent climb, although it is bigringable and so not overly steep, the race is more challenging than most local events. The only problem with the course is that once over the climb the rest of the terrain is rolling, with lots of downhills and little poppers over which it is hard to keep up the speed; breaking away and staying clear of the field is hard to do.

This aspect of the race came into play on the second lap. I attacked towards the top of the climb, although I hadn’t really intended to, and got a decent gap. Behind a small group with Dominique Perras and a few others guys formed and made their way up to me, followed later in the lap by Stig, who came a cross solo, and then three more riders. This I thought was a move that would stay away for a good part, if not all, of the race. On the climb that lap Dominique and I set what I thought was a pretty decent tempo. To my surprise when I took a moment to look back over the top there was the whole field coming back on us!

With two ascents of the climb left in the race I decided to try and blow things apart on the second last climb. Coming into the base I attacked, getting a good gap right away. The problem was that I had gone too early in the climb and as it dragged on the legs started to suffer to keep the pace up. It was probably here, in going too early on the climb, that I ruined my race. Again over the top a group came up to me. This time there were two VW riders in the group, soon to be three as a second small group came across later in the lap.

Three riders from the same group was too many and once more I tried to make a selection on the climb, this the last of the race. I could feel that the legs weren’t so good but in making my effort the group whittled the group down to four riders: Dominique, Martin Gilbert and Kevin Lacombe from VW and myself. Not the selection I had hoped for as now there was still the problem of having the two VW riders with us and worst of all now my legs were pretty much shot. There wasn’t much left to do than to cover attacks and hope for a good sprint.

Dominique did make a few attacks but in the end it was Kevin and I who seemed to just drift off the front of the break somehow in the last two kilometres. We traded pulls into the bottom of the climb, the other two just a few seconds back. I positioned Kevin to be in front of me, but there was the pressure coming from behind. What I didn’t want was for Dominique to drag up Martin, who was sitting on, and then get totally blown away in the sprint. Really I suppose I cracked a bit mentally and should have waited longer to launch the sprint; as Kevin came by me I was suffering just to keep the pedals turning over.

Having forced the selections of the race it would have been nice to win, but I was also looking forward to a hard day out on the bike. Had I not pushed the pace, and myself, on the climbs the race would not have been challenging enough and so in the end I was fairly happy with my day out.