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Let the races begin…Platinum style!!!
Poor College Kids Road Race Los Olivos 2/30/10
Platinum had eight riders in the 40-man field and our competitors included some top US professionals in addition to the usual SoCal road racers. We had the largest team and so we went on the attack immediately from the gun, with Ben Haldeman quickly gaining a couple-minute lead. The rest of the team marked every single attempt to bridge up to Ben, and generally disrupted any cohesive chase. On the return leg of the first lap, newly-minted Cat 2 Chester Gillmore marked an attack by long-time strongman Chris Walker and soon the two of them bridged up to Ben, making the lead break two Platinum riders out of three. Soon after, Matt Dubberley successfully separated himself from the field and was joined by several other riders attempting to get up to Ben. Unfortunately, Chester crashed at the beginning of the second lap which left a fatigued Ben alone with the fresher Walker. After 60 miles in the lead, Ben finally succumbed and had to let Walker go. He was soon joined by Matt and two others, and they came into the finish with a good lead over the field, rolling in for a solid 4th and 5th place. Meanwhile, Gary Douville went with a strong move from the remaining pack and sprinted to 9th place against some very fast professionals. The rest of the team (Takeda, Cook, Gerrits, and Fennell) rolled in with the surviving field, having put in a solid day’s work.
Brandon Droese and Steve weixel
First off I have to give it up to the UCSB kids for stepping up to the plate and putting on such a great event right in our own back yards. The course has been used off and on over the years (previously known as good ol days) and with the new pavement on the back side this course kicked but. Hopefully the UCSB racing organization will continue to provide great bike racing in California for many years to come.
It was an out and back course in Santa Ynez right in the heart of wine country; home to such famous brands as Brander and Firestone. There is a little hill, but nothing too bad. We had numbers on our side and fielded an 8 man squad of seasoned (albeit somewhat out of practiced) Cat 1’s. I think Ron and I were the only cat 2’s on our team.
So how did it go down? Well I’m glad you asked. Like any good well organized team we met about 30 minutes before the race to go over the ‘plan’. The idea was pretty simple: we had enough guys to try to go with everything and with the center line rule in effect we wanted to try to stay towards the front. The roll out was slow. Very slow… Slow enough to allow the Hammer to roll off the front at a cool 16 mph. Before the hill he was out of site. After that there were several attacks which the team covered very nicely.
On the back side Walker rolled off and I was in good position and it was my turn so I rolled with him. The back side of the course saw a tail wind that did not provide much draft… especially behind Walker. With a team mate up the road I was sitting on, which C-walk was not too happy about (and oh man did he let me know it), but I felt as though I was tactically in the right. We caught The Hammer on the hill going into the end of the first lap and opened up a Gap of around 3 minutes. Once we caught The Hammer I started pulling and also started to get very excited that I was off the front with a sizable gap in my first ever p12 road race with team advantage. Ben (The Hammer for those not in the know) was pretty tired from a hard 30 miles already but seemed to be finding incredible bursts of speed. Apparently that went on for the rest of the race where he would almost throw in the towel but then find some energy down deep. I was taking it easy when I was pulling through on the downhill stretch because I knew that Chris was not going to make it easy on the hill. Other then that I was pretty excited to be in a break with riders who typically win from break aways… Then came the turn around and the end of my race. I don’t want to get into to what happened or how it went down but I hit the pavement, broke my seat and tweaked the handlebars and shifters…
As quickly as it started it ended. The moto ref came rolling up and said “You have over three minutes on the main field if you want to get on rolling”. I looked at my bike and decided nahhh… this race was over for me.
Shortly after Mdub came rolling up in a chase group that eventually shattered to only 4 riders who ran into the Hammer. But Cwalk had dropped Ben on the hill and rolled into a solo victory. Good win for Coastal Tree Care who are local to Solvang.
Right behind him nipping at his heels was the chase group that had absorbed Ben right after the climb. Mdub rolled in for a 4th place with Ben right behind him at place 5. Three more riders who had been shelled from the chase rolled in next and Gary Won the field sprint (I think) for a 9th place finishing… So that was that: The first road race of the season with 3 top tens in the race.
Eighty masters riders from all over California started this race, and Platinum Performance fielded a strong eight-man team, including Chris Brown, Bill Lupo, Kim Bleth, Mark Fennell, Mark Luke, Tom Anhalt, Peter Boberg, and Ron Takeda. Among our competitors was a current World Champion from the velodrome, the current national criterium champion, and a former Olympian. All the Platinum riders rode near the front of the pack, contributing cohesively to our goals and animating the race. We made many attempts to establish a successful breakaway, including a multi-lap escape by Tom Anhalt, but the fast field wasn’t allowing us any leash. Despite our best efforts, the race came down to a field sprint against the aforementioned speedsters. Ron and Chris fought for position and stayed up front, and successfully sprinted to top-10 places. Ron got 5th and Chris got 8th, capping off a great team performance. Average speed of the race was 27 mph.
- Santa Barbara Triathlon 8/28/10
- San Ardo Road Race Cat 3 8/21/10
- San Ardo Road Race Cat 1,2 35+ 8/21/10
- America’s Finest Cities Half Marathon
- High Casade 100 Race, Bend Oregon
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