The August 4th Ontario Provincial Civic holiday was a perfect time to bring together the avid cyclists who were lucky to get the day off of work. Us cyclists were treated to the b-e-a-u-tiful area of Terra Cotta, Ontario for the 2014 Tour de Terra Cotta. This is one of the few races, that I know of anyways, that boasts full road closures for the entirety of the course. Throw in well maintained roads, great organizers and ample prize money and there is a great race to be had for those participating.
My goals for the race were: A) to hopefully get a notable result and B) get to ride in the open-category race with my OCTTO-Cervélo team-mates Brian Trafford, Dave Byer, Peter Morse, Bayden Pritchard and Osmond Bakker going so the more the merrier.
Come race day at 5am, my family and I loaded up the truck and traveled up the highway from St. Catharines to Terra Cotta near Brampton (leavig extra time to navigate around the disaster that was caused by a large dump truck crashing into and closing the normally super-busy Burlington Skyway bridge) so my sister could do her youth cup road race. I had opted to sleep for the duration of the trip in order to stay rested for the inevitable hammer-fest that would take place in only 8 hrs time.
That morning had been fairly mild outside and I remember seeing early morning riders donning jackets to warm up for their race . However, by 12:40pm the temp had risen dramatically and I sat in the shade near my vehicle jamming out to Red Hot Chili Peppers thinking 'man, I thought we were racing in Terra Cotta, not Guadalajara'. Regardless of what appeared to be overwhelming evidence of global warming, I made sure to fill all extra bottles and meet up with the rest of the OCTTO-Cervelo team so we could converse and prepare prior to the beginning of the race.
Considering we had good representation at the race we certainly had the ability to throw our collective weight around while watching for the sure-to-come attacks from Ryan Roth, Team NCCH and other really strong riders. With all factors of the race in mind we set out on our 106km journey.
Throughout the race, attacks were numerous as each member of our team made attempts to jump off the front of the pack. Each burst of speed however ended up being gobbled up by the main group sooner or later. .
The hard work took its toll and we were whittled down to Pete, Os, Bayden and myself. As the final early break had been brought back with roughly 3 laps left, you could smell that something big was going to happen as time was winding down and all the strong riders were crawling to the front of the group. As soon as I'd made it back to the front of the main group after a feedzone mishap, I found that a strong break had gotten away (Ryan Roth of Silber Pro Cycling, Will Elliot of NCCH and James Keezer of Midweek Cycling) along with a select chase group that vigilantly included an OCTTO-Cérvelo presence in the form of Osmond.
When the announcer on the last lap stated that the break was already 2 mins up the road and the chase was out of sight, the rest of the main pack was left to start throwing down for minor placings. At the end of the day Os had finished 4th while Bayden, Pete and myself hammered within the group. I ended up being boxed into the middle of the group and having to use some ex-mountainbiker techniques to get to the outside and try to make something out of it. Pete did the best out of us in the group with 11th. I overestimated the power in my legs and finished 25th and Bayden ended up motoring his way to 27th.
It certainly could have gone better for us with regards to our final placings but heck, that's racing. We were certainly the most combative group on the road today though so at least the day wasn't all for nothing. All in all, it was a great way to spend the civic holiday and I look forward to future endeavors with the team.
by Tommy Waldeck (team rookie)
No comments:
Post a Comment