Wards Ferry Race Report

It was another split weekend for the men's Elite team with Cat 2/3 fields offered at the Ronde Van Brisbeen and P/1/2 offered at Wards Ferry. Here's Greg Drake's report from Wards Ferry Road Race
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Wards Ferry Road Race,Sonora, CA
50F/70F Start/Finish, Calm Clear Skies
62(ish) Miles (5 Laps)
30+ in Field
AV Team(Placing): Jono Coulter (15th), Peter Dinolfo(20th), Matt
Morenzoni (11th), Greg Drake (9th)

The Webcor / AV Elite Racing Team was battling fellow lycra-laden bike racers on two fronts on this last day of March. Our Cat 2 danger-men joined forces with the Cat 3 squad to contest the Ronde Van Brisbeen. With that race set for a late afternoon start, Jono, Peter D., Matt M. and I were covering the early move, waking at 4:00 am to drive 2.5 hours due east to get to Sonora for our 8:00 am launch.

Since the Ronde didn't have a race for the NorCal Cat 1 contingent, some of the big hitters also made the trek eastward. AV alums Brian Buchholz and Jessie/Andy Mendonca lined up for the BPG/RH Villa squad, plus other notables such as fellow ex-Cal Aggie Jesse Moore (Cal Giant), Andres Gil (Delta Velo) and Kevin Klein.

In our pre-race meeting we discussed our current form and race objectives. With this being the first race for Matt, coming off a
chronic injury, the first race for me, coming off my third annual retirement, the first race for Peter after a week long business trip and the first race for Jono after fighting off his "Welcome to California, here's a flu for you" we decided that this was going to be a training session.

Needless to say we weren't really in that "Warrior" zone in the strict sense of the word. Maybe you could say we were a kinder, gentler version, and maybe a bit less muscular, and definitely with less hair. You get the point.

The bottom line was that if any team member was feeling spunky once in the race proper then we'd consolidate our efforts, but otherwise it was about getting in some good race miles with no pressure - stay upright, stay safe, have fun and get lactic!

The race course is tucked about a mile off Highway 108 in the beautiful rolling foothills, with fair to good pavement which is largely canopied by trees. The climbs were pretty short by NorCal standards (~1k) and varied from 5-8%. An important feature of this course are the fairly narrow and twisty and otherwise fast roads. It requires a fair amount of concentration and needless to say, positioning at the front of the pack.

The race started out with a 2 mile neutral promenade from the race parking lot. There were no attacks at the start but RH/Villa did have a man on front setting a little pace.

I stretched my legs on the first little kicker and ended up with a small gap. Akira Wong from Organic Athlete followed me and we took off. All of a sudden Brian Bonecrusher Buchholz bridged up out of nowhere spilling watts all over the tarmac. Akira and I jumped on the train but we were pulled back in fairly short order by the Lombardi and Delta Velo Squads. There continued to be a fair amount of the normal jostling around with moves coming and going.

About three quarters of the way through the first lap a rider launched a move on one of the small climbs. After covering the move I was swarmed a bit as we crested the hill and guys immediately slowed down and reached for their bottles. Buchholz smelled the lactic acid leaching from everyone's quads and it must be like a smelling salt for him because he launched a perfectly timed, perfectly savage attack that only Kevin Klein covered. I broke free from the jam at the front and joined the chase with a few other riders but they were committed and moving up the road.

That was the race for first and second. Gone.

>From there it was just pure attrition in the main group. The break never had more than a minute as several of us, namely Jesse Moore, kept up the pace - because you never know.

The main pack dwindled down to eight guys by the last lap when Moore finally got away, taking Mendonca and Gil. With a half-lap to go the rest of us were see-sawing off the back of their wheels but just couldn't hold on.

Buckholz beat Klein in the final uphill sprint for the win, while Gil just nudged Mendonca for 3rd and 4th respectively followed by Moore in 5th, all three about 45 seconds of the winning time.

The 3 guys left attacked and left me for dead at 200m to go. Ouch. We were another minute back or so.

As for the rest of the AV boys Peter had a rough patch near the end of lap one after covering a move and fell off the pace, and Jono and Matt hung in there for a couple more laps further. We all got a healthy dose of the burn-juice.

It ended up being a great race day, with perfect weather, no crashes, mechanicals or injuries and we won a t-shirt which was donated to Jono to possibly sell on E-Bay to fund his travels:)

Next week is the NorCal Roubaix, Copperopolis.

-Greg Drake