Jeremy's Roubaix

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DuncanBryson
Posts:7
Joined:Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:56 am
Your Ride:Tactic
Favourite Ride Style:Road
Jeremy's Roubaix

Post by DuncanBryson » Mon Apr 10, 2017 5:53 pm

Jeremy's Roubaix: the West coast gravel counterpart to the legendary Hell of the North. Nick, Jackson, and I arrived at the course to pre-ride on Saturday in cold, rainy conditions. The course consisted of an extremely flat 9km loop with a large stretch of fairly smooth gravel each lap. The finishing straight was about 200m after a 180 degree downhill corner coming out of the gravel. On the day the weather improved significantly. Jackson had some rain for the cat 4 race, but as the sun came out Nick and I were both excited to race with bare legs for the first time this season! Around two minutes from the start we found out that the cat 3 group would not be starting five minutes after the cat 1/2s (as was scheduled), but would be joined into one group. We were excited to test our legs against the 1/2s, but as we had lined up towards the back we had some work to do. The paved section raced like a crit, but wasn't overly technical. The biggest challenge was maintaining a position towards the front of the pack entering the gravel section where things got a little more interesting. A small group went off the front in the first two/three laps, and the pace eased up as all the big teams had someone up the road. On lap five Dylan Davies decided to bridge up, and the pace quickly changed. Midway through the gravel I began to slip back, which ended up being somewhat lucky as I avoided a large crash shortly after. One of the riders tagged Nick as he rode by and Nick went down, breaking his fork. I tagged onto Emile's wheel as he chased down the group, and flew by the dropped riders on the gravel. Unable to sustain the pace I lost contact about 200m before the end of the gravel section (so close...). I ended up with a chase group of two other cat 3s and a cat 2 rider. The next lap somebody yelled that there were no cat 3s up the road, so we settled into a comfortable pace for the last few laps. Towards the end of the gravel on the last lap I was strung out onto the front. Isaac (who has a pretty good track record at Jeremy's) had told me prior that a good sprinter can win from the last 180 corner if taken right. I eased up for the end of the gravel, as none of the riders seemed keen on giving up my wheel, and used some mountain biking experience to speed through the last corner. As I accelerated out of the corner I saw I had opened up a small gap, and went for it to take the cat 3 win! Still need a bit more fitness to hang with the cat 1/2s, but it was a great learning experience (and nice to get my first win of the season)!

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