Welcome,

In the summer of 2008, I started my blogging experience. I wrote about the Epic Summer, my trip to the Tour de France. It was, for sure, a bucket list item for me. I liked blogging well enough that I thought I'd continue to blog about my cycling experiences. It will be an infrequently updated blog, but I hope the updates will be interesting. If nothing else, the exercise should prove useful to improving my rather weak writing and communication skills. Thanks for checking in and I hope you enjoy.

Take care,
Jim Dennedy

Sunday, April 5, 2009

First OVR Race of 2009

While the pros contested the Tour of Flanders today, we in the Ohio Valley contested the first of the Ohio Valley Racing Series at Hueston Woods, near Oxford, OH. This was my first USAC race as a newly minted Cat 3. The course is approximately a nine mile loop with three reasonable climbs and gentile rollers throughout the course.

Team Abundance had seven (Jamie, Nick, Mike, Zach, Bill, Scott and me)in a field that looked to be 35-40 riders. About four miles into a 50 mile race, Jamie sends Nick off the front. Nick is an absolute hammer. Folks don't mark him much, but they will soon. No matter, he is super strong and can ride most Cat 3's off his wheel. Nick got a big gap in a short amount of time. Folks in the field were a bit stunned.

One guy from Raisin Rack (now National Engineering) chased Nick and was having some difficulty bridging up. After a mile or two, Jamie attacked and took a couple with him. They swept up the National Engineering rider and joined Nick. Moments later Mike launched a rather mild attack on a down hill segment and folks let him go. Mike bridged up to the group which looked to be about 7 riders and we had three in the break - good numbers for us.

Zach, Bill, Scott and me took turns patrolling the front of the field. Our job was to jump to the wheel of any chasers and make sure that if any went up the road, we were getting a free ride in the draft to the break, if the jump made it to the break. It went this way for about 20 miles. Then a group of 4 riders got away and we did not pay as much attention to that group as we should have. One of us should have made the jump with that group, which eventually bridged up to the break, making 11 in the break. Four of eleven is much better than three. We had the numbers and the legs to support it, we simply fell asleep. We did much better for the remainder of the race, no others escaped to make it to the break. We'll monitor it more closely in the next race.

The break was only 2:00 minutes ahead of the field, but that was enough. Of the 11 riders up, we place 3 in the top ten. It was a good day for the team. We learned some early lessons about managing the race. It was a great day for Nick, who is also a new Cat 3, placing second overall. Great job.
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