83 mile road race
April 10th, 2010
Josh Dillon - 5th
Justin Lindine 8th
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/tour-of-the-battenkill-ne-1/results
Team: Luke Keough, Justin Lindine, Thom Coupe, Steve Weller, Jerome Townsend, Will Goodfellow, Josh Dillon
Report: Awesome course. 83 miles. Several hills, often coming in succession. And 25% dirt roads. Perfect. Throw in a little help from mother nature with the wind and we had ourselves a good hard race. In the first part of the race we had 2 of the fastest starters on the US cross circuit covering early moves in Jerome and Luke, as evidenced by Luke making the first move of the day. Not long after that came back Will slipped into the 2nd break of the day to have us covered yet again. This came back on the hard climb at about the mid-way point just after the village of Salem. After a long dirt descent, all hands were on deck yet again as the race was constant attacks. Justin covered a move that looked very promising as the race winning move. Back behind in the field Will Dugan (Team Type 1) animated the race over the substantial dirt sections leading into Meeting House Rd, which was followed up by a mean pace on Meeting House rd by a CCB rider which whittled the main field down to 15 or so riders. I countered the CCB rider with a solo move and was on my own in pursuit of Justin's group. I was finally able to close the bridge by the crest of Stage Rd (but nearly killed myself in the process) about 7k from the finish. By then Justin had disposed of all but 2 riders in the group, which gave us 2 out of 4 at the front of the race with only a few k to go. But unfortunately, 1 or 2 riders at a time joined our group on the descent of Stage Rd such that we were 9 with only the flat 5k run-in to the finish remained. And then came the attacks, and in rapid succession. This split the group of 9 into a group of 5 with myself included. And we continued to attack each other. Not wanting to sprint Will at the line, i gave it all at 1k to go and held a tenuous gap until about 500m to go. This cost me any sort of sprint so i rolled in at 5th, with Justin just behind in 8th. If i had to give out an MVP award on the day it would be tough with almost all of the team executing their roles to a T...but if i had to give one out, it would go to Steve for watching over Justin and I in the first half of the race...pulling us around, and selling himself for the result of the team.
