This year, I decided to do both the Saturday ride, and a Friday night uphill time trial (4.94 miles, with the last two being uphill - Gannett Hill Rd, in South Bristol). I took 2nd in
master’s men category and 10th overall. The hardest part was actually the lead-in to the base of the hill
as there was a southern wind into our faces that, combined with the gradual 3% ascents,
was deceptively hard to overcome. I big-ringed it all the way to the base
of Gannett and had to remember to get on the little ring before I shifted into
my rear big ring as I’ve been dropping chain lately and really didn’t want to
do that in a race. I passed at least 20 folks going up the hill and
narrowly missed catching my friend, who had left 15 mins ahead of me. Not
a bad showing for an old man.
The Sat ride was weird for me: I
never heard my 5AM alarm (or screwed up setting the new cell phone alarm), so I
got a 45-min late start. I leaned in hard to my clip-on aero bar and
cranked real hard, managing to catch most of the pack by the base of
Bopple Hill. I flew up the 18-20% grade portion of Bopple, passing all of the serpentine travelers and
many of the straight-uppers too. Half way up Bopple, the rain began to
fall in huge drops and there was a veritable flood by the time I reached the top.
Was worried about traction on the second part as it hits 23% grade, but there was no ill effect of
the rain. The bagpiper was confined under the hatchback of a car, but
still playing (normally they have him in the cemetery at the top of the
hill). Somehow they had managed to stuff the bass drummer into that
hatchback and I could still him boom-booming along with the bagpipes.
Bills Hill came next and I’d
never ridden it before; didn’t like it either!
It wasn’t too bad though and I managed another straight up, followed by a fast
traverse and a wet descent down Stid Hill Rd with the brakes glued on
tight. Hit Rte 64 without incident and proceeded on to Gannett. No
probs on Gannett and, by then I was ahead of most of the main pack.
Straight-lined it up Gannett again but did take a break at the top as I was
really hungry by then. Ate a PBJ sandwich, drank the rest of a bottle of
Cytomax and listened to others complain about the coming T-storms and grumble
about the hills. Apparently we had ‘til about 11:15AM before they were to
hit. I began to formulate a plan to short-cut the 105 miles with a metric
century – figured that would get me in just about before the rain. I
don’t mind wet or wind, but cold gets me bad and lightning bolts aren’t too
pleasant either.
I rode through Naples and picked
up a wheel-hugger, who turned out to be a real nice guy from Montana that was
lost. We rode together through that back section south of Naples
(skipping the rest stop), up ‘til the Rte 53 cut toward Prattsburg. He headed out for Prattsburg (poor guy – sure he was caught out in the rains) and I
decided to head left (north) on rte 53 then and try to get in before the storm.
I flew down Rte 53 and drafted a truck through Naples, coming off his
draft just in time to head up CR12. That was a nice easy climb after the
rest of that day and I was averaging 12MPH up the hill through most of it.
I flew along the top of the hill
as the wind was from the south – about the time I was passing by the CR12 rest
stop (at the overlook of Canandaigua Lake), I could see the wall of rain coming
down the lake. I floored it and was just past the Rte 65 turn and just
north of Gannett when the rain and wind slammed in. 35+ MPH with driving,
horizontal rain. After a full morning of winds from due south, my nice
time of finally heading north with the wind was ended when the full fury of the
storm came in from the north. I tucked in tight on the aero bars and cut
through, but that driving rain sure did hurt! I arrived back at Bristol
Mtn Ski Area, soggy and starting to shake with the cold. It had dropped
by about 20 degrees in that short period. I shivered my way up to the
registration area, picked up my goody bag and was also given a gift cert card
for my 2nd place finish the night before. Headed home in the
rain to a nice, hot shower.
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