Leesville Gap Road Race

By Stacy Marple
Date: July 1, 2006
Team: Stacy Marple (2nd) , Victoria Vallestrom (4th)
Category: Women 1/2/3
Average Temperature: 94 F (felt like 110 F)
Reported course distance: 60mi
Actual course distance : 64.7mi (felt like 80mi)
Winner: Jill McLaughlin (Touchstone)

I did a little recon on the Leesville course and learned that in sections the pavement was quite rough, so I decided to ride my clunker training wheels and put on some burly wet weather training tires. "Rough", it turns out, is an understatement. I've been trying to come up with a good way to describe the non gravel sections, and the only thing I can say is to think of the pimpliest face you've ever seen, all the lumps and scars, craters and pockmarks, and you'll get an idea of what the road was like.

The so-called patching looked as if it was an elementary school child's play-doh creation. The other parts of the course alternated between gravelly sand and sandy gravel. Even the climb was technical. I loved it, at least until the last few miles when I was a bit over the "butt massage," as Victoria termed it.

Victoria and I were both pretty psyched for the race--the field was small and we were going to have fun with it. We sat on the front through town setting an easy pace. About 3 miles in, Molly from Metromint attacked. Victoria and I both jumped and already a gap formed. We just sat on her wheel for a bit until the follow car began honking and we realized we had missed a turn! Shortly after we caught back on, Molly attacked again. This time we just let her dangle. Eventually her being off the front got the pack working which was probably good, as it had been quite the tea party. As we entered the first rollers and gravel sections the pack was together. I went to the front to push the pace a bit and to keep safe in all that loose business. I was really having fun--it was like mountain biking, just getting in tune with the road, trying to find the best line, working the slide through the gravel, and before I knew it I had pulled away from the pack! Whoops! This was not in the plan. Jill from Touchstone bridged up to me and we were together until the real climbing began. I was walking away from her when I noticed that Victoria had attacked the pack and was bridging--yeah! So I slowed down and she and Jill caught me. At that point Jill began to push the pace. We started to pull away from Victoria. For a while she seemed to be struggling, then I noticed she got a second wind. I decided to slow down and pace Victoria back to Jill, knowing that Jill would not be able to stay away from both of us on the flats even if we did not catch her on the climb. We caught Jill shortly before cresting and upon descending quickly organized. We got about a 30-second lead when Jill started not working much, wanting to just roll through. Victoria was struggling a bit so I told her to sit on, but for a while she was determined to keep taking pulls. What grit! Jill attacked on the 2nd climb and Victoria fell off. The next 30 miles alternated between me and Jill working together and debating about who would pull. I'm not really much of a wheel sucker but I had my heart set on practicing some finish tactics with Victoria, so I wanted her to catch us.

At about 10 miles to go we had a 3-minute gap, and the motorcycle official, Mike, told us that Cindy Mommsen (Olympic Club) and Victoria were the next group. I began a tactic of false pulling and incrementally slowing the pace down each time. At the final turn, about 5 km from the finish, we could see Victoria & Cindy! They were definitely going to catch us and make things interesting; however, a group of men passed them and completely blocked the road, making their bridging to us impossible.

So I found myself in my first two-up sprint. I had absolutely no idea what to do and was pretty sure it would take a miracle for me to out sprint Jill, because she looked like a sprinter, whereas I have a big mental sprinting block attached to my back wheel which slows me down a bit. So I thought maybe I would try and go early and ride her off my wheel, and jumped hard at 1K. That did not seem to work, so I sat up. At 400m we were just riding together when I decided to jump again. At about 200m she came up beside me. She was working hard, and I was kind of startled at the presence of some one sprinting so hard so close to me. As she began to pull by me I sort of sat up. This I really regret. I think in races, and in life in general, it's often hard to finish strong, but important to do so for your sense of well being. I may or may not have been able to pass her, but no matter what, I should have kept the pressure on to the line. One more lesson learned! Victoria valiantly worked in her two-up sprint against Cindy (a strong sprinter) and lost by just half a wheel for a strong 2, 4 finish for PABW Powered by TIBCO.

As Jill commented, it was a really tactical race, which was fun. I'm still not sure that I know what to do in this two-up sprint thing, but I'm beginning to think my only sprinting problem is in my head. And I hereby vow never to sit up before the line.