Grant Oakley's Race Report: UNCW Weekend
DATE - March 1, 2014
AUTHOR - Grant Oakley
CATEGORY - Men's D
TEAMMATES - Brooks Mershon
RESULT - 1st of 16
COURSE DESCRIPTION - 12 mile course, two laps. Three 90-degree right turns and two sweeping right turns. The final turn was 200 meters before the finish line. The course had negligible elevation change. Men’s D started with Women’s C.
PREVIOUS RESULTS - First time racing this course
WEATHER - Cloudy, upper 30’s, light winds. Last 3 miles are upwind, with downwind finish
Shortly after passing the start line for the second and final lap, a solo UVA rider broke away on the downwind leg. His gap grew consistently for several minutes, and I thought his break might hold once he was 200 yards up, so Brooks and I bridged. We were successful and worked together to hold our break (and drag the original solo) for about 3 minutes before the pack caught us and we eased up. A few minutes later, the same UVA rider attacked again, and again started generating a serious gap. We did not attempt to bridge this time, but Brooks and I rotated with 2 other riders to increase the pack’s pace and overtake him again.
With about a mile remaining, a fresh looking UNC rider from the back attacked and I followed with most of the pack. We caught him within sight of the final two turns, so I allowed my momentum to carry me ahead of him to try to lead through these turns and ultimately through to the finish. I underestimated the distance to the turns and ended up pulling in front for a lot longer than I intended. Brooks and another rider blew by me before the second-to-last turn, leaving me alone through both turns. Brooks brushed up with this other rider on the final turn, allowing me to start the final sprint a bike length behind them, riding three abreast. Brooks and I hit the gas, easily dropping the third rider. I slowly crept up through the last 200 meters, and passed Brooks shortly before the finish line for a Duke 1-2 finish.
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EVENT - UNC-CH Crit
DATE - March 2, 2014
AUTHOR - Grant Oakley
CATEGORY - Men's D
TEAMMATES - Brooks Mershon
RESULT - 2nd of 15
COURSE DESCRIPTION - 20 min closed course parking lot crit, 1km laps. Two ~300 meter straightaways followed by a pair of slightly downhill chicanes, the second exiting into a long low-grade uphill. This ended in a 90 degree turn with 100 or so yards to the finish line.
PREVIOUS RESULTS - First time racing this course
WEATHER - Partly cloudy, 40’s, no wind.
The first 10 minutes moved moderately fast but evenly. Unfortunately, Brooks and I ran late getting to the race, so a short warm-up and late breakfast made these lap fairly painful for me. I was finally starting to feel like racing when Brooks made his move (5-6 laps remaining). He was joined by a W&M rider and had a ~100 yard gap on the field.
In order to try to slow the pace of the field, I moved into second wheel of the pack, but unfortunately this had the initial effect of picking up the pace, since the field thought I was trying to bridge. Once I slid into the second position of the pack, things slowed down and I sucked wheel and refused to pull, which effectively put a kink in the field’s attempt to rotate leaders and catch the break. Despite this, we eventually caught the break near the start line, so I immediately attacked hard with 2 laps remaining. I rode one lap solo before being caught by the same W&M rider, who drafted me on the uphill portion. We had a comfortable gap on the field, so I sat up and tried to regain some strength for the sprint, which I knew he would be fresher for, but he immediately blew me out of the water and hit the final turn with ~4 bike lengths lead. I made a halfhearted sprint for 2nd, and Brooks out-sprinted the field for 3rd.