Rolling start at about 15mph through the neutral 1/2 mile then the
lead car hit his horn and it was on. Hammered prety hard up to about
26-7mph and stayed with the lead group, it eased after a mile to
24-25mph for the next 5 miles. Sitting in the group was costing me
about 160BPM which is just under my LT so if I stayed out of the wind
I thought I could hang with the lead group, I even had a couple 90
second pulls at the front.
I picked a bad line through a 90 degree right hander and left myself
on the inside with the cross/head wind hitting me hard, I started to
drop through the pack... This was not a sunday 'On Draft' ride, NO one
was going to help or let me back in the pack... spit me out of the
back with two other guys.
Time to form a bit of an aliance with these other fellas? I nodded at
the guy with the beard (later I foud out he was Jim) and we took 2-3
min pulls for the next 5-6 miles, we were now averaging more like 18
into the wind and 22 cross wind and it was costing me more like 175bpm
when pulling, over my LT for another 65 mins was going to hurt.
The third fella was refusing to help so I gave Jim a nod to stick to
my wheel as we turned on to the gravel and we pushed and dropped the
freeloader.
The first loop was up in about another 5 miles and riding with Jim was
working so we continued, he was riding a regular road bike (tarmac)
with 23/25 tires so I was pulling more on the gravel and he was
pulling more on the road. Seems my slightly fatter rubber and slacker
CX bike geometry was a benefit on the gravel, who'da thought ;)


Loop 2 was a lot more of the same, but there were 3 more riders drop
out of the lead pack (one guy with a flat), I think they both spent
too much in the lead pack so weren't able to hold on to me/Jim when
they dropped to us and we blew by. The last gravel section is about 1
1/2 miles and leads to about 1/2 mile of asphalt to the finish, I
pulled the gravel and happily waved Jim through for the glory run, I
didn't have enough left to hang on so he dropped me by about 5 seconds
on that last 1/2 mile.


Was it fun? Hell yes! Would I do anything different? Probably ride
a lightweight road bike (if I had one) and work on more forward
thinking about pack position, I think if I could have stuck in the
right position within the lead group, I could have hung with them,
being out of the wind and not pulling 50% of the time makes a huge
difference.

skill/knowlege of road racing, don't get caught out in the wind, you'll be screwed.


If you have only done tri / time trial, go do a road race, totally differnt vibe and lots of fun.