University Road Race Report

Fabrice raced solo at University Road Race this past Sunday. The relentless up, down, & repeat course is known to favor the strong and cripple the weak. Being a strongman, Fabrice naturally did well, netting a great 4th place. Below is his report from the day.

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Event: University (Santa Cruz) Road Race, Pro 1/2
Date: 8/24/2008
Result: 4th of 40 (To verify)
Team: Me

Course: 20 laps of the 3-mile circuit, which was a loop with basically a 1.5 mile uphill and a 1.5 mile downhill. The climb was gradual in parts, moderate in others, and steep at the end.

Weather: Cloudy, foggy and cold at the beginning then clear and warmer.

Race:
The start was at 8:00am.

CalGiant had a full team there, maybe 8-10 guys, Tony Cruz and Jackson Stewart from BMC and two guys from the Jittery Joes Pro Cycling team, including Neil Shirley.

During the first laps there were not a lot of attacks.

Then the CalGiants tried to put one guy in a break but without a good result, the gap didn't exceed 20 seconds.

During lap 11, Greg Remaly, the guy I beat last week, attacked then caught and dropped a CalGiant guy and went alone for a long ride...

In main field, my tactic was to wait as long as possible possible to do big efforts because during that week I felt a little bit tired.

During the next 5 laps there were some accelerations from Jackson and Tony Cruz, which dropped some guys from the main field. But these acceleration were not enough to catch the leader. During lap 15, one guy from Davis attacked and went alone, he got a comfortable gap from the main field and was gaining on the leader. During lap 17, Neil Shirley made a strong attack and I remained the only one to keep his wheel. In one lap we caught a CalGiant guy who was dropped by the Davis guy, and we were within 20 seconds from the leader, because the Davis guy caught the courageous Greg. In the last lap the Davis guy dropped Greg and went alone for the victory. In my group we tried to closed the gap, but without success. During the climb I was dropped from Neil Shirley's wheel and we finished the race one by one. The Davis guy won the race, Neil Shirley caught Greg just before the finish line and I finished just after Greg with a nice 4th place.

That result put me at third place in the ongoing Cal Cup classification. That's a nice place before the last weekend of the Cal Cup.

Thanks for reading,
Fabrice