W/AV P12 Copperopolis Race Report

On the eve of Paris Roubaix, the guys tackled NorCal's version of the roughly paved classic. Our Parix-Roubaix, Copperopolis Road Race, is marked by bad pavement throughout, winds, climbs, exposed flatland, and tough racing for 105 miles. The rough course usually attracts some top local pros, as was the case this year. Levi Leipheimer showed up again, it's always cool to line up with a top ProTour rider.

Attrition is usually high due to flats, mechanicals, and exhaustion, and our team did well to have more than half our team finish. Fabrice had a phenomenal ride, with his usual calculating but agressive style, finishing 4th on the day (1st amateur). Parnes kept up his strongman reputation by placing 11th. Below is Fabrice's report from the race.

Official Results

Director Keith's summary with more photos from the follow car can be found here

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Copperopolis Road Race
Saturday April 11th, 2009
Pro 1/2
Place: 4th of 81
Teammates: BP, Parnes, Billy, Jeffro, Bo, Myself and Thomas
Support: Keith Williams and Amy (Bo's wife)

After leaving San Carlos at 5AM and 2 hours of driving nearly in the middle of the night, we arrived at Copperopolis. This race is constituted with 5 laps of a tough circuit, for over 100 total miles of racing. The road's pavement is very bad all along the circuit; it was like Paris Roubaix one day before the real race!! The weather was sunny but chilly at 8 o'clock in the morning, with some wind on the top of the climb of the day. The field was about 81 racers and strong with about 15 professionals from Astana (Leiphemer), BMC (Nydam), Colavita, Rock Racing, Team Type 1, and Bissell (both JM's).

Just after the start, an escape of 3 guys took an advantage, increasing the gap to 4min by the second lap. During the race I tried to follow Keith's advice which was to keep as much energy as we can (It is a very long and very hard race). In fact, the combination of the climb and the wind on the flat plateau didn't allow for any recovery. So my goal was to stay in good position in the field without missing any strong moves.

During the third ascension of the major climb, Levi decided to increase the speed with training buddy Nydam on his wheel. At the top of the climb we were just 20 guys on the front at only 1 min from the escape, we all worked together and we caught them in the next lap. Then BJM attacked with Nydam. I understood that this move will be very important because BJM has his twin in our group and Levi will not work behind Nydam, so I decided to attack and I tried to close the gap alone, but the wind was strong and I was only able to get 10 seconds, but no more. So I decided to wait for the group and to try another time but with somebody else. Through the feedzone at the start of the next lap I went again, this time bringing Mattis (CalGiant). I set the pace for the entire climb and we took only 40 seconds advantage by the top, but that was not enough. In the last 5 miles we were caught by AJM (Bissell) and English (Zteam). Andy attacked us just before the last bumpy descent, and I won the sprint against English for 4th place. Mattis had a flat somewhere along the way and dropped off our group. Up front, BJM took the win over Nydam. (Note: Levi was disqualified for crossing the centerline!!)

Ryan Parnes made, as usual, a strong race and a fantastic come back, he finished 11th.

Thanks to Keith for his support and advice, which was so important when you don't know anything about the circuit, and thanks to Amy for the feed zone although I don't drink a lot!!

Thanks for reading
Fabrice