Henleyville RR 9-19-09
In our first race as a Masters 35+ 4/5 team, Body Concepts/Peak Cycling Won this years Henleyville Road Race…
Yet another race I’ve never ridden before, but we had 5-riders in the A group and our 6th teammate Dave missed our group by 1-rider and was in the B group. This was a 3-lap 18-mile circuit with one small hill (the feedzone) with the rest of the course basically flat…no significant wind to speak of, centerline rule in effect which resulted in only 3-riders being able to ride across in the lane comfortably.
The first lap was what I’d call a parade lap…~20-mph average, no attacks.
On the second lap there was more energy in the field with a couple of short lived single breakaways but the field was controlled by Taleo and Wells Fargo teams. Randy V and Brad H had a couple of digs on the front for our team, but nothing significant happened with their pushes being squeched by the bigger teams.
Starting the third lap the field was definitely edgy…our team stayed in the top 20-riders and out of trouble. Apparently Wells Fargo team didn’t get the memo that you don’t attack in the feedzone but when I looked up from getting a bottle from my wife Linda (awesome hand off!) about 25-riders where disappearing up the road with about a 50-meter gap. I got on the gas and Brad and I bridged back up by the top of the hill and, as usual, everyone sat up again a couple of minutes later. At the start of the race our Moto-ref had stated that if a rider crossed the center line, they would be instantly disqualified from the race, not just sent to the back (interesting…never had that rule before). As we were getting close to the 1-Kilometer marker, which on the last lap the entire road was open to race on, Third Pillar team came flying by over the center line followed shortly after by our Moto-ref who DQ’ed their entire group which was nice to see the centerline being enforced. Once past the 1k mark Matt C was in the top 6 riders and I was back about 25th…I moved up to him in the next 500-meters and he let me into the line 
A group of 5-riders came up the left side and I jumped with them up to the 200-meter sign at which point a Teleo rider and Davis Bike Club rider jumped off the front…I jumped into 3rd position behind them and got towed to the 100-meter mark. I heard Linda screaming to go, go, go..So got out of my saddle and punched it up into the lead and sat down for 20-meters before getting out of the saddle again for the last 30-meters to the line…no one came around…I won 
)
Randy V finished in 10th place (two in the top 10 again!), Randy F 19th, Brad H 20th, Matt C 21st rounding out our first team effort.
Dave racing in the “b” field finished an awesome 4th place.
We have some work to do in the off season to pull our team tactics together learning what each of our strengths are to deliver an impact into next years Masters 4/5 road races…see you out there )
Rob
Greatings, Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Thank you