Perry-Roubaix

The TT ride was uneventful for me, but the scoring was much more interesting. I had a decent ride, but screwed up resetting my bike computer, so I wasn’t sure of my time. When results were posted, it showed me 1 minute faster than Keith and 2 minutes faster than Todd. I was sort of shocked, but pleased nevertheless – I was in 7th for cat4 GC (or so I thought).

Several people punched off the front in the circuit race. Andrew Elisan-Visperas from the Bike Store tried his third attack on about the 3rd lap so I jumped on his wheel. He (we) didn't get far before he was about to drop me and the pack caught us anyway. I finished the circuit race in the main pack in 21st place out of about 40 starters and picked up a spot to what I thought at the time was 6th in GC.

When I got home and ran the numbers on my TT speed, I realized that 21:40 meant I’d ridden at 26.3 mph and that somebody had made a mistake with my time (you don't go from riding in the 23 mphs directly to riding in the 26 mphs without pharmaceutical assistance). I told my teammates about it the next morning and reported it to the scorers. They said they'd check it out but that the chips made timing errors improbable. Maybe improbable, but not impossible it seems.

As it turned out, the timing problems made no difference because I was shelled on the dirt road part of the 2nd lap of the RR. I was dropped along with 5 or 10 other riders on the 1st lap, but with a very hard 10-minute effort, we were able to chase back on and reach the main field at about the interstate crossing. But the chase took everything I had, so after the second dirt road section I was stranded in the back with about 10 riders - probably the same group as the 1st lap. We tried to chase back on again, but could not. At the feed zone my chase partners decided to call it a day, but I wanted to finish and get in some good training miles, so I rode the final 3 laps solo, which sucked. Thanks to Jake for the feed. But at least at the end of my 5th lap I got to see Christian breaking away for his RR win. Congratulations Mr. Parrett.

A few other items from Perry:
Todd won 3rd in cat5 GC.
Trey won 3rd in the RR with a good finishing sprint in a pack of 6 or 8.
Keith had the best MAX finish in the TT.
Christian won the cat 3 TT.
Andrew (Bike Store) won the cat 4 TT and GC.