25.5 miles, 1:10 time. A Group, 4th place finish.

It was fast and furious week. The profile was not too steep, so everyone kept the pedals to the metal. The B group won some time back for my team, The Cannibals. (I didn’t pick the name, hopefully it grows on me. It kinda grates on me now.) The A group had one guy out for each team so it was 3 on three. Peter, Tyler took off and Kirk did a great job for our team to hang on with them. Bob, Gregg and I held together for the length of the ride. Gregg came back for me a couple times. I felt heavy on the first lap of 12.78 miles. I felt better on the second lap. Bob is on the other team, so he wasn’t helping out with the pacing. I didn’t have enough to drop him either. I held on to the end and them slingshot my way up.

Bill’s colorful reports below

B Group – Wed

The Cannibals feasted on Merchant carcass tonight.

After getting eaten alive in last week’s “B: race, tonight the tables turned for the Cannibals.  Due to Mike Bowdish being on call and Sue coming up sick at the last minute, the Cannibals called on Bill as a emergency replacement.  He teamed up with Bryan to turn the tables on a illness-ravaged Merchants squad. The Cannibals tonight were Bryan, Bill, Allen and Tiffany, while the Merchants fielded Steve, Amy, Lynda & Mike Wade.

Mike got dropped at the start, leaving a group of seven which hung together until about Mile 4.  At that point, Bill burst away from the pack and strung things out.  Behind him was a small chase group consisting of Bryan and Amy, while behind them was another group of Steve, Tiffany , Allen & Lynda.  Lynda hung in there well, but eventually got dropped by the second chase group, who were also able to drop Tiffany as she was having a bit of a mechanical issue.  That left Chase 1 as Bryan & Amy and Chase 2 as Steve & Allen.  

However, even though Chase 2 was able to drop Tiffany, they could never quite lose her. Twice she rallied back to almost within drafting distance of Chase 2, only to be dropped again by a surge from Steve.  Even so, Chase 2 was never able to put serious time into her, and she eventually finished about 1.5 minutes behind them.

After Bill was able to put a gap into Chase 1, Bryan surged away from Amy at about Mile 5.  Once he dropped Amy, Bill waited for him and they formed a strong group working together.  They were able to gradually put time into Amy, who was able to hold her own ahead of the former Chase 2.  At the intermediate sprint, Bryan crossed the line ahead of Bill, with Amy coming third about 3 minutes back.

As the race went on, Amy became quite a road captain for the Merchants, coaching Steve on how to best drop Allen.  In spite of having Allen on the ropes a couple of times, Steve was never quite able to shed him, and they eventually finished together.

About 15 miles in, Mike caught Lynda, and they were able to work together from there to the finish.  As the miles wore down, so did Amy, and with just a couple of miles left, the group of Steve and Allen was able to close the gap to her down to within a thousand feet or so.  Up to this time, Steve had been doing the lion’s share of the work in that group.  However at this time, Allen started to tell Steve that, if they worked together, they could catch Amy and get the final sprint points for Steve.  So, Steve started to work harder.  With the gap down to about 600 feet, Allen put in a big pull and got the gap down to about 200 feet as the finish line loomed ahead.  Steve took it from there, passing Amy with about 100 feet to go after she had been away from them all race.  

At the finish line, it was Bryan and Bill crossing first, in 1:06:52 each.  Steve nipped Amy for third at 1:16:06 and Amy at 1:16:07.  Allen was just behind Amy in the same time as her, with Tiffany another minute or so back at 1:17:42.  Rounding out the race was Lynda taking 7th away from Mike at the line, both finishing in 1:26:11.

In the sprint competition, Bryan mopped up the big points, taking 14 overall, with Bill getting 8, followed by Amy and Steve with 2 each.  In the team competition, the Cannibals totalled 4:47:03 today, putting about 37 minutes into the Merchants, and thereby surging into the team lead by about 21 minutes.

However, after tonight’s feast, tomorrow may be a different experience for the Cannibals.  The Merchant’s squad for the “A” race looks strong, and may have the ability to take back some time and even things back out.  Will they?  If so, how much?

We’ll see tomorrow night!

Bill

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A Group – Thursday

The Tables Were Turned Tonight

Tonight belonged to the Merchants, who were able to put time into the Cannibals with some strong riding.  The Merchants tonight were represented by Peter, Tyler & Bob, while the Cannibals fielded Kirk, Gregg & Joe.  Each team had one person out sick, reducing both teams to three riders.

It didn’t take long for the breakaway of the race to occur.  At about Mile 1, Tyler & Peter put in a strong move and got away from the group.  However, Kirk recovered and was able to slot in on their wheel, while Gregg, Bob & Joe were related to a chase group.  Gregg tried mightily to pull the front group back, but they were strong enough that, once the draft was broken, he couldn’t close them back down.  Tyler & Peter worked hard to ensure that the front group was going to stay away.

That was essentially the move of the race.  Once these groups were formed, there were a number of attempts to attack out of these groups, but none succeeded.  Starting at about Mile 5, Tyler and Peter took turned whipsawing Kirk, but Kirk hung tough and was able to stay with them, in spite of having two guys attacking him alternately.  After a couple miles of these attacks proved fruitless, the race settled down into a pattern.  Tyler subsequently tried a few attacks, Peter tried a few, but none had the leg-burning severity that the earlier attacks did.

In the intermediate sprint, Tyler surged first, but Kirk was able to hold his wheel.  Peter dropped back, but then timed his surge beautifully, passing Kirk and Tyler both, while Kirk was able to go over Tyler for 2nd place.

In the chase group, Bob put in a few attacks on Gregg and Joe, but these were all chased down without too much effort.  However, starting at about Mile 14, Gregg launched a series of attacks.  He had Bob well off his wheel a couple of times, but Bob and Joe together were able to bring him back.  Later on, Joe also launched a couple of attacks of his own, but these were chased down quickly.  One attack at Mile 18 almost succeeded in getting Joe and Gregg away from Bob, but he was able to dig deep, and claw them back.

Up front, Tyler also got active at about Mile 18, and started a series of attacks which had the intent of dropping Kirk.  Kirk and Peter’s avatars were dressed very similarly (yellow over black vs. yellow over navy blue), and at one point, Tyler thought he had gotten away with Peter, only to find out that he and Kirk had dropped Peter.  Once he realized this, he eased up, and Peter was able to chase back on.  Peter also pounced a couple of times with attacks of his own, but none were able to shake Kirk.

At the end, there were two groups which came to the line about 5 minutes apart.  In the final sprint, Peter was able to go off the front and hold on by about a wheel over Kirk.  Tyler mis-timed his sprint and had to settle for 3rd.  Peter’s time was 1:05:56, while Kirk & Tyler were both at 1:05:57.  In the chase group, Bob pulled them to the line, then Joe attacked out of the group.  Gregg tried to follow, but ran out of track, leaving Joe 4th at 1:10:29, Gregg in 5th at the same time, and Bob 6th at 1 second back.

In the team competition, the Merchants picked up about 5 minutes overall, cutting the Cannibals lead to about 16 minutes.  In the sprint points, the leaderboard is as follows:

Tyler	26
Peter	23
Kirk	15
Bryan	14
Phil	14
Jeff	12
Bill	8
Rudy	8
Amy	4
Steve	4

And, in the individual race, the leaderboard after two weeks is:

Place	Name	Total Time	Gap
1	Tyler	1:53:09	0:00:00
2	Peter	1:53:27	0:00:18
3	Kirk	1:53:43	0:00:34
4	Jeff	1:58:14	0:05:05
5	Gregg	1:58:27	0:05:18
6	Joe	2:00:22	0:07:13
7	Bob	2:01:39	0:08:30
8	Trevor	2:05:07	0:11:58
9	Bryan	2:05:26	0:12:17
10	Steve	2:07:15	0:14:06
11	Amy	2:07:16	0:14:07
12	Allen	2:11:41	0:18:32
13	Deanna	2:13:16	0:20:07
14	Mike Bowdish	2:16:34	0:23:25
15	Sue	2:16:36	0:23:27
16	Tiffany	2:16:36	0:23:27
17	Phil	2:17:05	0:23:56
18	Rudy	2:17:15	0:24:06
19	Mike Wade	2:20:48	0:27:39
20	Lynda	2:20:48	0:27:39