Today was the last race of the Masters race series for 2008. We couldn’t have asked for a better day: 24 degrees under clear September skies in a beautiful region of the Island near Duncan, around the Cherry Point Winery, the starting place. The race consisted of seven laps of a 9.2km circuit, rolling.
I had not finally decided to do the race until yesterday, since, after taking last week fairly easily, I wasn’t sure a race this weekend was prudent. Plus, I felt I was fighting a slightly scratchy throat – perhaps just my body still recovering from some harder training the previous two weeks. Yesterday I rode just a couple of hours, mostly easy, hoping to ease my body away from any bugs that might have attempted to gain a foothold.
Nonetheless, in the end I thought I might as well do the race, wind-up the season and thought perhaps the hard effort would finally blow out any bugs that might be trying to multiply in my system.
At the start there were about 8 riders in our 40-49 year group, including Don Gillmore, Steve Bachop (who won the B.C. Masters Mountain Bike Championships last weekend), Aaron Dusseault (who was first in the 40s group last weekend) Casey Ryder, Tony Wakelin (third last week in our group) and others whose names I’m unsure of. Ahead were about 12 in the 50s group, and three or four in the 60s group (I believe). There were about 8 or so in the 30s group behind us. We had four minutes to make up on the 50s, and seven to make up on David Mercer’s group.
With Don and Aaron both being very good sprinters, Don also being a fantastic time-trialler, and Steve, fresh off a win at the B.C. Championships (Masters) last weekend, and not to mention that Tony was ahead of me last week as well, I thought this was unlikely to be a great day for me. I also doubted whether we had much chance of catching the 50s – they are a strong group, and 4 minutes is a lot of time to make up in 65km.
However, right away our group began pushing the pace. It was a little windy and slightly uphill past the start finish near the Winery to the first turnaround, and then gradual climbing for a couple of km, making it hard right off the start. On the first of the steeper (but short) climbs, although my legs were feeling a little tight, I could tell I was feeling strong. On the backside of the course up and the hardest of the climbs, our group was already down to four of us: me, Don, Steve and Aaron.
On the second lap, pulling hard past the finish along the headwind straightaway, I realized we had lost Aaron, so it was just three of us. Around the corner and onto the gradual climbs, Steve took a pull before a steeper section, I came through and then Don and I slipped away from Steve. This left Don and I, the Schwalbe duo, on our own maintaining a torrid pace.
Trading pulls evenly, Don and I caught the 50s on the third lap, and proceeded straight past them. One of them joined us for about a couple of minutes (Andrew, I’ve learned (unsure of last name)) before falling off our relentless pace. On the next lap we caught and passed David Mercer, meaning we had caught everyone and with three laps to go it was Don and I alone in front. At around that time Don was kind enough to offer me the win, as he thought I’d been taking the longer pulls (although I didn’t really think so). He is far and away a stronger sprinter than me, so this was a generous offer. Don noted that he had not trained much in August, had lost a little fitness, and mentioned that he was going to have some trouble holding the high pace to the finish.
So, I offered to take the lion’s share of the pulling on the last two laps. As we continued, we began to pass lapped riders, while Andrew managed to latch on for a few km after sustaining a flat. On the last of our laps up the last climb, we lapped the 30s riders, and went straight passed them as well.
Heading into the finishing straightaway, Don took the last pull and motioned for me to come up beside him. I put out my arm to clasp hands and he held my arm up in the air, and we crossed the line together, with me slightly ahead to take the win. A fantastic gesture of sportsmanship by Don, who could have easily dusted me in the sprint, and a great way to wind up the season! What fun! The manner in which Don and I dominated is certain to be a race I will always remember. One day I will remember this as one of my more glorious races (one of the few), I am sure, and I will always remember Don’s sportsmanship and generosity.
Steve held on to take third after also passing all the riders ahead. As I had to leave straight away, I didn’t find out exactly how the rest of the placings played out.
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