EVENT
Bariani Road Race
CATEGORY
35+1/2/3 and P1/2/3 – raced together but scored separately
DATE
Sunday, March 16, 2014
AUTHOR
Ivy Wang
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Rolling 14 mile loop with flat, fair to good pavement – 3 laps (42 miles)
WEATHER
Hot and windy! (Glad we had Osmo to keep us hydrated :)
TEAMMATES
Dana, Cheryl and I decided to register for the 35+1/2/3 race in support of the NCNCA Women’s Series, and Kim and Elise registered for the P1/2/3 race.
GOALS
* Team – Results! Upgrade points for our 3’s.
* Personal – Execute my role, be strong enough to be there for teammates at the end.
PLAN
Contribute to keeping the pace high, cover attacks, get someone in a break. Cheryl and I to help cover attacks and animate as needed. Dana to keep the pace high and the race safe in the narrow sections.
RACE SUMMARY
The field was comprised of ~35 Elites and ~10 Masters. It was a pretty big field through some narrow sections (with a strict yellow line rule) and rough road. Good thing it was easy to spot my teammates in our spiffy Capo kits. A couple of breaks got away early, but nothing that seemed too dangerous. Cheryl was great in chasing and covering (and she went straight to work afterwards that night – talk about Superwoman!). It took me about one lap to settle in and make it to the front to execute aforementioned plan. In the second lap on the back side “rollers,” I got into a ~7 person break which gained a sizable gap. We soon organized and everyone was pulling through. We kept the lead for a reasonable amount of time when people started bridging up to us. Soon, the breakaway became almost half of the field, at which point the cooperation broke down and the rest of the pack came together, just in time to start the third lap.
The finish was a long, false flat/incline with a strong headwind on a frontage road parallel to the freeway. I found myself behind a sea of people having to brake a lot, so I decided to move up on the side into the wind for the slowest, longest grind to the elusive white line. It looked like I finished 6th overall, which translated to 1st in the Masters race, which was an awesome surprise. Dana rounded out the podium with 3rd and Cheryl finished 7th in the Masters race. Kim got top ten and Elise had a solid pack finish in the Elite race. The 4’s had a great day as well – Andrea and Shelagh had a fun, safe race and finished 7th and 9th.
We did our post-race debrief in the shade over ProBars, and then we divvied up the generous loot from Sacramento Golden Wheelmen.
TAKEAWAYS
* We can do a better job at being at the front of the pack and dictating the race
* Always know your finish (especially if it’s a multi-lap race where you have automatic opportunities to recon) – that finishing straight felt forever
* Onward and upward!
Alex Chiu Gallery of the race here
