Hancock, MA – For reasons still unknown, Jiminy Peak is one of the most popular and well attended bike races on the New England calendar. Not to discredit the fantastic race organization, or the region in which the race is held, but the course itself is, well, undeniably drab. Save for a 1.5 kilometer climb, on which during the fifth lap the race comes to a finish, the course rolls along open, wind-strewn roads that form some sort of repititious rectangle. There’s usually a breakaway composed of those strong and spirited enough to churn straight on into the relentless breeze and, if the recipe of riders is just right, will gain significant time on a cumbersome field that is either tired or bored. This is exactly what happened this year.
MetLife brought Ryan, Brad, Tim, Corey, Charlie, Andrew, Peter, and Chris to line up against what is always, and inexplicably so (see above), a stacked New England/New York/Quebec field. With eight guys ready to go, we had quite a few cards to play. We broke the race up into thirds, a couple of guys would be responsible for covering early moves, then another triplet would take the reins in order to save three or so fresh pairs of legs for the finish. In our heads, the plan seemed spot on, since the breakaways have been winning nearly every road race this season so far.
Perhaps a bit too fired up, the guys were overzealous and zapped a lot of fuel on the first two laps. It wasn’t all for naught, however, as the first 30 miles felt like a crit rather than a 90 mile road race. It was fun for a little while to see each team send up rider followed by rider, duking it out for breakaway fortune and pack supremacy. But it also ate up more gas than a 737 and much of the field seemed to run the rest of the way in on empty.
About halfway through, a break of eight broke the leash on the rollers a couple of miles before the turn onto Brodie Mountain Road, the finishing climb. In it were some of the bigger names in regional northeast cycling; not in it were MetLife riders. We were caught off guard as the early guys had left their posts, the middle guys were struggling to match attack after attack, and the finishing guys were still eating their breakfast in the back. Perhaps more telling of the breakaway’s eventual success was the wind and how the move seemed to linger just in front of the peloton, always within bridging distance yet always out of reach. The peloton, however, was fooled.
On the penultimate lap, with at least another 25 miles to go, and with no MetLife representation in the break, new team member Tim Mitchell put his head down and plowed off the front of the pack, throwing all caution to the wind. With May’s infinite frontal system bearing down on the lone rider, it was unanimously agreed that Tim’s effort were ludicrous and that his chances of staying away were as skinny as the tires on which he rode. But Tim isn’t like most people. He’s ambitious and doesn’t always listen to common sense. If his energy could be bottled up and sold at drug stores, he would be rich beyond his wildest dreams. So off Tim sped, cranking a huge gear, progressing eventually from the peloton.
Unfortunately, Tim’s impressive power would not be rewarded as the field caught him a few miles before the turn up to the finish. With the success of the breakaway secure but with the riders in the main field unaware of exactly how many people were still up the road, the uphill sprint for the line was on. Ryan and Brad did what they could to steam up the last aching steeps but many of the best sprinters had just a little more. Ryan took the team’s top honors of the day in 15th while Brad came in, same time, in 24th.