Wilmington-Whiteface RR

This weekend saw me on the road and en route to the familiar Adirondack region for the second inception of the Wilmington-Whiteface race. I definitely remember this weekend being one of my favorite from last year-- a good course, reasonable length, and a huge finishing climb. My race report from last year reminds me that I had a superb moustache and I got third place in a 3-up "sprint" for the line.

I was happy to learn that the race would be back again, this time with the addition of a criterium in Saranac Lake on Sunday. It's good to see quality events like this grow year to year, even though I chose to skip the crit.

On Saturday morning, I saw there were 41 riders registered for the p/1/2/3 on bikereg, so I was optimistic that our field might break 50- which would indicate the race doubled in size in only a year. As a bonus, a bigger field usually means there's more places to hide and be lazy- definitely my modus operandi during road races. I don't have the final numbers, but I think it must have been around 50, although I saw quite a few pre-reg'd cat 3's choosing to relegate themselves to the cat 3/4 field. Yeah, they probably heard about me...ha.

A race this close to Canada means there was quite a contingent of Quebecois who traveled south of the border. This typically means lots of early, often fruitless, attacking eventually punctuated by implosion. It also means there's a lot of peloton chatter only privy to those fluent in French bike-speak. Let's call this international flair.

The race got away easy enough, although there was a remarkable amount of attacking during the neutral roll-out. Something was lost in translation, I suppose. As we finally came out of neutral, I set about my spot tail-gunning the field and surveying my efforts. I knew that attacks would go, but I was content with the fact that most breaks would be inevitably slowed by the looming finishing climb. I heard a lot of chatter to the tune of, "yeah I'm just going to sit in and see what happens on Whiteface." I have to admit...I like that attitude.

As mentioned in last year's report, there is a ~7 mile rolling section which leads the field out to the roughly 14 mile loop. There are some big ring grinders, some false flats, and some swoopy downhills, but the course isn't very selective for the most part. However, there is one climb near the feed-zone that always spawns attacks. I wasn't necessarily looking forward to this portion, as I remember suffering terribly there last year. But at least I knew what to expect.

I don't remember much of the first loop, except that I made a conscious effort to be near the front on the climb so that gaps wouldn't open. If I don't remember it, that's usually a good thing. Pain has a way of making things memorable.

Lap 2 was a little different- this time I was fairly attentive on the climb, but somehow a small group slipped off the front over the top. Cameron was in there, so I made an effort to be near the front but not actively chasing. It also didn't seem to be a terribly dangerous break, as they were visibly sabotaging any collective efforts. Unfortunately for them, the move lasted about half a lap before we all came together.

Finally, the end of lap 3 was where the race came apart/together. Prior to the climb, a group of probably 7 riders shot off somewhere. Don represented the Ithaca contingent in this break, so our consciences kept our [greedy] legs in check. Even though I'm riding for Cambridge, I'm not going to sabotage the efforts of my fellow Ithacans (more justifiable laziness on my part). The break was away for quite some time, but it was clear that this was not necessarily the final, winning move. Anyone out front that long would be hard pressed to hold the effort up Whiteface. The time gap was fairly consistent and they were visible on the straighter sections of the course, so there wasn't any particular sense of urgency.

As we hit the riser, Cameron was on the front driving the pace; naturally the field was pretty strung out behind. I was doing my best to cover gaps and not lose my chance at a decent finish. I bounced from rider to rider, trying to recruit a critical mass to bridge up. Unfortunately, they were arguably more wasted than me, so I finally had to just put my head down and do it alone...and I eventually made it, all crappy shifting issues aside. Phew! We had 9 riders here, and only 7 just ahead. Time to go.

Unfortunately this was the most unwilling group I've ever been with. Of the 9 riders, only 3-4 were consistently putting their face in the wind. Cameron and I represented 50% of this effort, although our pulls were merely for show, given that Don was still ahead. Dan Vaillancourt from Colavita incessantly barked demands at us and was being generally unpleasant. I was told to "pull faster" even though no one was behind me to keep the rotation going. He would lightly surge off the front, then look back and give us a pretty disdainful look. Given that this race would entirely happen on the final climb, I'm not sure why he was acting so rushed. The break was in sight...they weren't going anywhere.

In any case, our group worked well enough to stay near the break and off the front of the field as we came off the circuit course. All we had left was a 7 mile rolling drag to the climb. And then 1.6 miles at 8% average gradient. No big deal...

As expected, the lead was starting to shed some of its riders. First to go was Don, who we picked up several miles from Whiteface. He came back to our group, took a few pulls, but soon fell off the back on a short but pretty difficult riser. Most of us were woefully over geared, evidenced by the low, griding cadence and punctuated by the popping of hard shifts. Two more riders came back to us (and presumably went). I guess there were still 4-5 guys up the road. The group became downright dysfunctional as no one wanted to waste any effort before the mountain.

So there we were- allegedly 1.6 miles from the line as we turned onto the Whiteface highway. I could see the pacecar ahead- the leaders were only a couple hundred meters out of reach. Cameron instantly went to the front, bringing Dan Vaillancourt and a couple others with him. I threw my water bottles and settled in with a smaller group right behind, not quite ready to make a huge effort. Unfortunately, this probably turned out to be a bad decision.

After only a couple hundred meters of sitting in this group, it became pretty clear that we were going far too slow and quickly losing distance to the leaders. So I struck out alone and sure enough, I found myself in no-man's land. At this point, I was matching the speed of the group ahead...I was just 100m in arrears. Ack! Fortunately, I was picking up the shattered remnants of the original break and improving my position. Someone asked me if I knew where the finish was. Obligingly (stupidly), I described it...probably meaning I should have been riding harder. I started to count the riders ahead, and checked my shoulder behind. As I scanned for the pace car, I saw a lone figure in a Chris' Cookies/Swan Cycles kit with probably 50-100m on the next riders. Cameron was absolutely killing it- I would later find out he averaged 429W over the 8 minute ascent(!). I then counted four more bikes ahead, and found myself faced with 400m to go and a fairly insurmountable gap to 5th place. I looked back, decided I was safe, and cruised in. The careful reader will note this meant I got 6th and I garnered $55 for the effort. I have to say, I'm pretty happy with that...and the Wilmington-Whiteface race remains one of my favorites.

But that was only part of the weekend-

Later that night, Jake B. and myself did the Whiteface climb in the rain. Long story short- the way up was as nice as I could expect- perfect temps, cool rain. Unfortunately what was great on the way up was awful on the way down, mostly due to my lack of appropriate clothing (arm warmers...). I wouldn't go so far as to say I was close to being hypothermic, but I had to stop probably a dozen times to "warm up". Rainy descents at 45mph are not fun when you're fighting a shiver-induced speed wobble. That said, I would still do it all again. I'd probably bring a jacket next time, though.

Naturally we couldn't be satisfied with only one climb, so Sunday morning saw us at the top again- this time in the sun with 70 degree temps. I have to say it's much better that way.