Monday Masters PIR, by Csaba

2nd road race of my career! :-) I had no idea what I was doing. I
did not win the race, but did not come in last, and I kept the rubber
side down.

It was wet. There were 16 of us in the pack for 13 laps. I do not
understand how the "hot" laps work. Could someone please explain?

I chased down a number of breakaways, including a sprint to the finish
line that I won that doesn't seem to have mattered. On a couple of
the breakaways, I ended up in a group of 2 to four riders. Before
long, I was stuck at the front. While I appreciated not having a
faceful of tire spray, I spent too much time at the front and didn't
seem to be able to do anything about it other than keep easing off
until the whole pack caught up. Maybe it was a drawback of my
benevolence, being the only rider sporting a rear fender, that made my
wheel so popular.

I decided that the race was really just the interval training that JB
was encouraging me to do, with a bit of traffic thrown in just to make
things interesting.

On the final stretch, I chose poorly in deciding which wheel to
follow. I got stuck behind a guy that wasn't holding his line very
well. I tried to get around him, but he wobbled at an inconvenient
moment, so I backed off rather than risk being taken out. A few
moments later, he nearly clipped the front wheel of the guy riding
next to me. At the final sprint, he was swerving back and forth so
much as he mashed his pedals that I had a long way to go to get around
him. A bit frustrating, but I suck at sprinting and was nowhere near
the front of the pack at that point, so no real harm done.

On a positive note, there was none or very little of the irritating
braking and yo-yoing that dominated the Piece of Cake road race.

Csaba