W/AV Pescadero RR Report, P12

I'm posting this report for Fabrice while he and Rand are off racing the Tour de Nez up around Reno for the next several days. Last weekend the W/AV Men's Elite Team fielded a strong team to contest the P12 event. It would've been an even bigger team but Rand and Justin were admirably dedicated to their signage volunteering job and didn't get back to the start in time after franticaly putting up sign all around the course the morning of the race. Anyhow, the guys rode strong as usual and Fabrice ended up with a top-10. Below is his report.

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Race: Pescadero RR Pro1/2
Course: 103 miles, 3.7 laps
Result: 7th of 60
Team Mates: Peter Cazalet, Jeff Williams, and BP Buchholz

(Photo Courtesy of Ryan Gibson)

Last year, this was my first race in California in a Webcor/AV jersey (finished 14th), and it's with great pleasure to enter the race again this year.

The weather was not as usual in California, it was nearly the same as Normandy weather for June--a little drizzle and wet roads.

Our objective before the race was to be in the first break and to protect myself for the "finale". From the start, BP covered all the attacks in order to be in that first escape but nothing came together. Before the real climb a very interesting move appeared: BP and I were there, as were 2 Cal Giants (Jesse Moore and Steve Reaney), 2 Z-Teams, Dan Martin (Safeway) and 6 other guys. But Z-team's strange tactics began. Nate English (another Z-Team) closed the gap on the main climb of the circuit with the whole field on his wheel!

Then during the next half lap nobody was able to create an escape because English covered all of them. On Stage Road, three guys succeeded to attack without a Z-Team reaction: Steve Reaney, Dan Martin and Chris Turner (Above Category). The Z-Team was not in the break so I thought they will work to bring it back but that was not the case, they just tried to attack without success. So the escape took a large advantage (about 6 minutes).

In the second lap, Jeff and Peter took a couple of pulls in hopes to get some work going to close down the gap, but no one else was interested. I tried to create a counter attack on Haskins but without success, we were 30 guys in the main group with 5 minutes behind the escape. I don't know why, but in the last lap the entire Cal Giant team were on the front and worked together to close the gap and we arrived at the bottom of Haskins for the finish 1 minute down on the 3 guys off the front.

English rode the last climb like a rocket and finished 4th (With some good team tactics he should have won easily!). For myself I tried to launch my sprint from too far so I was passed by two guys at 100 hundred meters before the line, I finished 7th. Last year 14th, this year 7th, next year should be a good one if the progression continues!

Thanks for reading
Fabrice