Race Report: San Ardo RR

Jono and the gang went out for another Cal Cup race this past weekend. This road race was in the flat-ish farmlands of San Ardo, which is south of King City and seemingly straight outta Steinbeck's East of Eden.

Below is Jono's report from what sounded like a tougher than normal edition of San Ardo Road Race.

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23 August 2008
San Ardo RR Pacific Bank Cal Cup
86miles
Webcor AV Team: Jono Coulter, Bo Hebenstreit, Graham Simpson, Jeff Williams, Ryan Prsha, Neil Harrington, Brad Goodson
Ken Hanson (Cal Giant) 1st
Neil Shirley (Jittery Joes) 2nd
Jono Coulter (Webcor AV) 18th
Bo Hebenstreit (Webcor AV) Top 30
Graham Simpson (Webcor AV) top 30 from 75

San Ardo is a quaint farming and used car parts town only a few hours drive south of San Jose and only a few hours from the beach or creeks. A nice place for several hundred cyclists to converge for another day of Cal Cup smackdown. Compared to a lot of Nor Cal grovel fests, San Ardo only has a few shallow gradients to punctuate a flat and fast course.

The day before the race all our guys received valuable advice from James Badia, Rob Macneill and Bruce Wilford about the particulars of the course, as these guys had done well here in previous years. Also, without them and other high performers like Fabrice and Rand i told the lads that i was going to back myself for the finale if they could make sure the field was kept tight.

The race line up was pretty spectacular with strong teams from Cal Giant, McGuire, Lombardi and Z Team as well as Pros Antonio Cruz (BMC), Neil Shirley (Jittery Joes) Kevin Klein (Rock Racing) Chris Jones (Type 1) Eric Wohlberg (Symmetrics) and Eric bennett (Successful Living).

True to form though our guys got straight into the mix and with several attacks going from the first lap we always had someone in there. Notably, Bo and Jeff patrolled the front end vigourously while Ryan got into a promising breakaway with one from each major team that lasted 20 miles. Strong stuff. Meanwhile Graham and Neil-HDogg were looking after me and laying down raps and Brad was mega strong and looking like a sneaky russian until he flats without a support car. Bummer!

Coming into the 3rd lap Jeff was in a move and the pros started to force the pace through the feed. Unfortunately for Jeff we catch his group at the wrong time. Not being very confident of my climbing lately i planted myself in the top 5 guys and tried to hold on as Cruz and Shirley began to light up the proceedings. 2kms later we crested the relatively minor peak and there was 15 of us. Game on. the next 15 kms was full on and small groups were tacking back on to the selection between the undulations but after the group swelled to 35 i was worried as no more go greens had made it back. I dangled at the back looking over my shoulder to see Bo and Graham fighting deperately to get back on only 300 metres behind and i really believed they would get there but alas it was not to be.

Like any race where pros get a sniff at the win the race gets faster and faster as the miles tick away and the third time up the ramp on the back stretch i had to go with the front move, seriously we were single file at 51-56kph for nearly 20 minutes just railing the gutter. Racing you know it!!

Lap 4 was more gutter action and i was torn between following EVERYTHING because no one was going to help out should the final selection occur but my gut instinct told me it there were too many interests at stake and the race would stay together. So i spent half the time jumping on stuff and half the time last wheel as the front group dwindled to 25. There was basically no difference between either role it was all 50kph shoot em up nuclear dogfight with mega rocket cannons and i had a pocketknife.

Also i realise at this time that i am a smart and happy bike racer that likes to follow promising moves not (name witheld) from Z Team who BURIES himself for miles on end foaming at the mouth to make sure the pace doesnt drop below 51kph in the cross wind. Where do these ANIMALS come from!?!??!!??!.

5km from the finish knowing that i am not the calibre of maybe half the guys in the front group i laid a conservative plan to drill it up the last climb and hit the final bend in top ten and sprint from there. Rob macneill had explained that the winner would come from the top three around that corner- i didnt really back myself against a USCF Elite winning train from last weekend Cal Giant including the stars and stripes Ken hanson, plus the 8 pros in the race and other multi rider lead outs. But i did think i would have enough powerclimb kick to move from 19th to tenth in the final 500 metres and then hold it for 150.

So 500 to go i gave it the most shove and stick i could possibly give and of course every guy in that group is mega fast and i move up two spots over 300metres with my eyeballs popping out and my legs lactating and lose one of them after the turn. Later watching other categories sprint i realise how slow the sprint looks cos youre going from just under a km, and especially for me because i have an amazing world class sprint for 15 metres.

Anyway the result is 18th which is dismal for backing yourself and I'm a bit bummed but super happy when only a few minutes later Bo comes over the line solo having ridden two laps at warp speed on his own and not long after Graham came in also with the remnants of the peleton!!

Thanks to all the Webcor AV Elite guys for being out there and rising to the occasion- most of the guys in this weekends squad were 3s at the start of this year and this was a gutter action Pro-Am race and everyone did more than an adequate job of taking the first part of the race head on. Shows the depth of our team- sorry i couldnt deliver a top ten.

Thanks also to Amy for doing the feeds, all the AVs who always cheer on all the racers and also Neil can i buy the components offa your MAN BIKE because i need to train more in gears 6 and 7.

Mille Grazie
jono