Photo courtesy Pat Malach, Oregon Cycling Action
Men’s CAT3 – by Sage Freeman
the first Banana Belt of the year started off with several crashes, getting neutralized by an emergency vehicle and a clustered field sprint to the finish line. There were several break attempts early in the race which kept the pace honest. Jesse rode strong close to the front of the race the whole day. On the 2nd lap the field began to spring to the finish for points. Mike Stockton got hit from the rear pushing him into the guard rail, but somehow stayed upright. Sage came to a complete halt after running over a poor Willamette rider. Lap 3 on the back side was also eventful. Out of nowhere someone hit the deck fortunately all by himself. Heading into the finish Kurt Haas admirably went up to the front with just over 1K to go to bring up the pace. The field sprint was fast but also crowed with no room to move up. Next week we get another shot!
Avg Speed: 23 mph
Avg HR: 161 bpm
Avg cadence: 88 rpm
Elevation: 2807 ft
Distance:41:48
Time: 1:47:34
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25818801
Men’s CAT 5A – by Zachary Jabin
My race went really well, no crashes. There was aseperation in the pack with like a mile til the finish but we got back together before the finish and i got around 10th. so a pretty good day for me.
Men’s CAT 5B – by Matt Jones
Well I registered late and raced the 5B group so no team help for me. Great race though. The first lap, despite the warnings, several of the riders took the corner to the dam too hot and slid off the road, not sure if anyone got hurt or not, too busy keeping focused on my line. Next couple of laps were pretty uneventful. I stayed in the front third of the lead group and figured I would have a shot for the sprint finish. Last lap, about two miles from the finish we had to go neutral to let the Masters 1-2 guys by. The little bit of time idling didn’t do me too well and when they gave the double honk the group jumped. We were near the bottom of the last hill and my legs started to cramp up. I chased the tail as best I could but couldn’t close the gap so didn’t ahve to worry about a sprint finish. Thinking I ended up somewhere in the top 20. We’ll see when they post the results! All in all a great race, just need to work on my race nutrition and keep building my base. Looking forward to the next one!!!
Men’s CAT 4/5 40+ – by John Divelbiss
raced 4/5 40+, but didn’t put wheels in, so he didn’t get wheels out when the tire went “boom!’ DNF.
Men’s Masters 50 & 60+ – by Craig Beavers
Phil L. , Rick K. and Craig B. were in the master 50&60 + group today. Rick said it was his best result ever for B.B. Hung with the main field all the way to the finish. Phil was looking very strong often near the front and riding his own line.He said he cramped up with less than 5k to go.Lets remember Phil is 60+ ! He is very strong for this category! The race played out with one man soloed of the front on the second lap, He held around one min lead on the rest of the field. On the last lap a break of five men got away and held on to their gap to the finish.The rest of the main field sprint finished for the remaining placements.I was in the main field and in the top ten of that sprint finish.I’m guessing that I placed around 15th? So that’s the lowdown. Hope you recover fast and have a good week ahead! Take care have fun!
Photos from Oregon Cycling Action
http://oregon.cyclingaction.com/2010/banana-belt-1-photo-gallery/
Complete Race Results on OBRA
http://obra.org/teams/5615
[...] Tepster wrote a very interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt:Great race though. The first lap, despite the warnings, several of the riders took the corner to the dam too hot and slid off the road, not sure if anyone got hurt or not, too busy keeping focused on my line. … [...]