In the photo: Mathias
Written by Mathias.
Wards Ferry was quite a peculiar race. I was excited about that race as it was my first Cat 4 race as well as the first climber's race of the season. Let's just say that this race was special in the way events unfolded too.
We were a massive group of 10 riders who had driven to this nice little area of the Jefferson county. TMB had a good showing as Jon Frost, Trevor Gilmore and myself were forming the largest group by far. It was therefore a good opportunity to control the race, form a breakaway and fill the podium... well that was the theory.
Race started, everyone was rolling smoothly until we hit the first downhill. Jon took things in charge with his great descending skills, while Trevor and I were following not too far behind. After a couple of climbs and turns, Trevor and I were in front of the pack when I realized that Jon was NOT in the pack anymore. Mechanical victim no. 1.
Then, the next two laps were similar to the first, people dropping one by one as they either flatted of their chain was saying "no, not today buddy".
On lap two, I had a bit of a rush of adrenaline when I took a turn too wide, ended up in the grass and bunny hopped my way up the pavement again. I was still there, and Trevor and I kept on controlling the pace together with a guy from Team Fremont.
Lap three saw Trevor go with a double flat, completely crushing all our plans and roadmap to greatness. We were still 4 left in the race.
We went on for the last two laps, me trying to shake one of the riders off the group as he was not taking any turns. When we hit the last climb to the finish line, Keith from Team Fremont launched his sprint and it took me too long to answer. I was then gaining on him but couldn't pass him before the finish line. I finished 2nd and was frustrated by that, but this is called learning!
All in all, I liked the course, and will definitely do it again but it would have been great if the field had been larger and there weren't that many mechanicals.
