Sweet Open Blog

2010 Tour of the Hilltowns Race Report

Cat 3 Men

I suppose I better write this up before we get all busy with things this weekend. Hilltowns is a tough road race, 56 miles, East Hawley Road in the middle of things and a not especially pleasant series of uphills over the final few miles. I’ve done it twice before (‘03 and ‘04) as a Cat 4, with no noteworthy results. 

This was my first race with SweetOpenRoads.com p/b The Bike Hub, and for the first 20 miles (netting ~1000ft of descent with a few rough pavement patches), my primary objective was to keep teammate and under-hazed freshman rising sophomore Matt Nichols well-positioned and out of trouble. 

It was an easier task than anticipated, both because Matt kept himself situated pretty well, and because the pack was steady (relatively speaking) on their bikes. There were more than a few flats, but I only heard about a small crash or two, and even then, after the race. A break of two did get clear early—something about which Matt expressed concern on the run-in to East Hawley road—but I was certain that if the four miles of climbing didn’t get them, the next thirty of wide state highways and unyielding headwind would. 

I was third wheel making the turn onto East Hawley road, and kept near the front until the Town Line sign before settling into a more-or-less threshold effort. People tend to over-race this climb, but with no KOM prime, a pretty tame descent and a long way to the finish line, no sense to burn more matches than necessary here.

Matt went by me as someone accelerated, and I told him not to get too excited. He responded by throwing up “the horns”—have I mentioned that he hasn’t been hazed enough?—and danced away with the rest of the leaders. I watched the action, but made no real effort to close gaps except on the flatter sections.

East Hawley’s a “pretty humbling stretch of pavement”, to borrow a quote from PVB, but you can save time with your brain—direct sunlight softens dark asphalt patches, it’s worth the extra effort to cut up the steep inside lines on the corners, and your watts go a lot further on the flatter sections at the top.

I took a quick peak over my shoulder on the last little rise and saw a group coming up—one guy even called me out by name, recognizing the Cyclocosm logos on the kit. I eased off a touch and hopped onto their pace line; I think we swelled to about 12-15 by the time we were descending in earnest, but the co-operation was pretty ugly. One BCA guy in particular seemed to think he could best serve his interests by attacking and then sitting 50 meters ahead of the rest of the group.  

I’m guessing we were the second major group on the road. I—along with plenty of other riders—put in some good-faith pulls to bring us back to the field, but once the main field got in sight, I went to the back and sat on. There’s only so much help another rider would have been in the mess driving our group anyway. 

Regrouped, I checked in with Matt and told him to eat an energy bar. I also tried to gather info on the race situation—2/3 guys were away, and Kissena guy was incensed that I wasn’t chasing. I tried to explain the rigors awaiting the escapees over the next 25 miles, but he was having none of it, got angry and attacked. 

Matt asked me how my sprint was feeling, but I wasn’t so sure it would come to that. After a few more miles of just rolling through and taking easy turns, we decided it was time to get after this in earnest, so I rolled up to the front and cranked things up a notch. I thought I’d gone into the pacesetting pretty gradually, but I ended up getting a gap, so I eased off, and then re-upped the tempo as the group got in contact. 

Not sure how long the pull I took was, but it felt pretty good, and seemed to get some other guys motivated. Matt even got into the effort a little bit—perhaps unnecessarily—and I told him we shouldn’t do any more work now that the break was back in sight; the pack, collectively, would close things down. 

A few miles later, probably 47 into the race, I started discussing endgame strategy with Matt, and we came to the conclusion that it would be good to hit the first pitch (about 6 miles from the end)  with the field lined-out to reduce things to a small group battle as soon as possible; the intention being to drop teammates who were just hanging on to the tail of the group to give us a numerical advantage as the final attacks/counters played out.

Once again I went to the front and steadily dieseled up the tempo, and once again, I looked over my shoulder to see a pretty enormous gap. Despite not being able clear it with the team car, I dropped it a few cogs in the back and took off, trying to get a few of the sweeping corners between myself at the field. 

As they were just getting out of sight, I noticed a Rhino Bike Works guy who’d put in some good turns earlier was also clear of the field and closing on me. I didn’t wait (I didn’t need to) and we shared the work pretty evenly up to the first pitch of the climb, were it became clear he was going up hill a bit faster than I. 

I debated going red to hold his wheel as long as possible, but went instead with riding a pace I knew I could hold through the steep section; I’d be able to open up more time (or lose time more slowly) on the flatter pitches toward the top anyway—especially with Matt back in the group, making a mess of things in any would-be pace lines.

Once off the steeper first pitch, I fell into a pretty good rhythm, just over threshold, moshing away and keeping the Rhino guy in sight. I checked over my shoulder only once, on the on the sole descent of the last few miles and—surprisingly—saw no one. It started to rain on the last pitch, and as I came inside the final KM, I was pretty sure it was going to work out. 

Sadly, it did not. The course ends with a 180 turn at roughly 200m to go, and as I lined up for that corner, I could hear the hiss of tires on the wet road behind me. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the realization, though, and managed to grab a good wheel as the sprint kicked off. Unfortunately, and for reasons I don’t entirely comprehend, I came off that wheel and slowly bled places until I finally crossed the line in 8th.  

It’s tough to feel bad about that finish in a race this hard, especially going into the day as a worker. But it’s also tough to know that I could have stayed clear for second with a bit more luck, or sprinted to a possible Top 5 if I’d kept my head on straight. Still, plenty more results for the team to look forward to with Matt, Paul Salipante and myself all riding well coming into Tour of the Catskills.