Blue Hills Classic

Cat 3

Cosmo and Matt Sack rode strong for the team in this one....
Take it away Cosmo....

"The loop at Blue Hills is about 7 miles. The primary obstacle is a gradual, stair-step climb that is not hard enough to be decisive, at the end of each lap. It's followed by a flat-ish stretch with a tailwind, then a corner, a small rise, and a gradual, stair-step descent that is, again, not tricky enough to be decisive. The road surface was declared in the pre-race instructions to be in "pretty good shape for New England"—I give it a 6.5 of 10, with most sections being easily rideable, but punctuated steadily with a few mostly-well-marked potholes, dips, and broken shoulder pavement. 

Matt Sack and I met up at the start, where I said I'd be stalking a few key players—among them the Harvard squad made entirely of Collegiate A riders sandbagging in the 3s—and trying to go with them. Otherwise, I'd be more than willing to lead him out in the sprint, as there are few finishes I like less than a drawn out, gradual, non-selective climbs.

On the start line, it was clear that several teams were well represented, especially Green Line Velo, Cambridge Cycles and 545 Velo, all Boston-area squads. Almost immediately, though, Cambridge lost two riders to flats, which made things feel a little nervous in the bunch. I was a little worried about getting forward before the descent, and as we rattled over the course's most rugged section of pavement, I counted four bottles spinning and bouncing past me in the field. First time up the climb was pretty sedate. I started a little further back than I wanted, but moved up easily, which made me pretty certain I wasn't going to get dropped. 

We went into lap two with a little more pace, but after rotating to the front a few times to sample the wind (and let people know that I'd pulled a few times) it was pretty clear that outside a serious attack, the race wouldn't split up. Things got pretty pokey the second time over the climb, and a Cambridge guy attacked a little, but then sat back down when he realized it was going to be hard. 

Lap 3, things started finally getting interesting, with two of the Harvard riders trying to get away together up the rise leading into the descent. I was on it, as were a few others, and I was really hoping that it was early enough for the rest of the race to let us go. But it was just too easy for the pack to sit on once one or two guys started to come across, it was all together again. 

I'd burned a few matches on that lap, so I hung back on #4 to cool the jets a bit. And of course, going up the climb, I watched three Harvard dudes and someone from 545 Velo attack through the last but of the climb from the front of the field. Apparently everyone else was OK with this—or rather, OK enough that they'd go to the front for 15 seconds and then flail about looking for someone else to come through. I was like "eff this" and went to the front and started stomping. 

It wasn't really a bridge attempt, or a pull, just a general attempt to not allow a very strong Team Time Trial to go clear. I shortened the gap up, but coming onto the rise, I really didn't have the power to close it solo on the climb. As I slowed, people started to bunch around me but not come through, so I still found myself plowing away at 80 rpm until the top of the descent, where some people came around, soft pedaled the descent and the gap went back out. 

Coming into the climb, Steve from GLV asked me who was up the road, and I said "Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, 545" which took him by surprise. Not enough by surprise to get him or his team to the front, however. Tempo up the climb, probably stoked by people who realized the problem at hand, was pretty good, though the pattern of "be on the front for a moment, slow down and complain" continued. I actually found myself in no-mans land over one of the rises because I didn't feel like slowing down to get out of the wind again.

Over the top on the bell lap, I was 4th wheel about 7 seconds back, and in what I really, really hoped would be a good second group. Pace-lining with 6-7 dudes is easy, pace-lining with 6-7 dudes while 50 other people crowd up at the front and do nothing is very hard. Sadly, the separation was not to be made, and other than a few attack-pulls/bridge attempts up the last rise, people pretty much gave up on the case, and decided to wait on the sprint. 

As I said earlier, I'm rarely going to contest this sort of finish. It combines the people-doing-stupid-stuff of a not fast enough sprint with the bland, unproductive agony of a not hard enough climb. I was pinned out against the yellow line, getting chopped by a lot of people advancing over it, and hearing all sorts of yelling-crashing over on the other side of the road. I probably should have taken a look behind me to see if Matt was there, because it turns out he was, and I definitely could have put in a good late charge to at least get him to where things were interesting. 

As it was, I floated in with the back of the field, and I think Matt was further up, in the thick of it. After the race, he asked me if his rear wheel looked broken, which it most definitely was."