Blue Hills Classic (Cat 4)

May 3, 2009

My second Cat 4 race, second race with other BRC’ers, and second race in 24 hours.

I’d only driven this course a couple times, and had never ridden it. There was a large contingent of BRC’ers, including Jay C., Bob L., Colm, Stephen R., Benny, and Julian. Not a ton of strategy talk, but it was pretty clear that Jay was going for a high finish. I was pretty beat from Jiminy Peak the day before, and promptly ended up at the back of the pack. I hung on there for the first two laps, constantly chasing to catch up after the corners.

On the last part of the last lap I moved up to mid-pack, getting ready to surge at the end; however, I misjudged the finishing distance and started my sprint too late. I finished 30th, 7.5 seconds after the winner.

Lessons learned:
1) Don’t just hang on and chase. Too wasteful.
2) Know the course, and know when the finish line is coming up.
3) Do a better job of resting post race.

Nice work by Jay, who took 4th.