Sprott, Alabama
Never heard of Sprott? Well there is a reason for that - there is nothing of note there. Only a road. And that road was all we needed. CBR took 13 riders to Sprott for our maiden voyage to the middle of nowhere Alabama. We had three teams for -Team Time Trial and one adult and two Junior riders for the individual event. The day started in a rainy Wal-Mart parking lot at 5 AM. We gathered and combined stuff to get down to 5 vehicles for the 3 hour drive to Sprott. The rain fell off and on the entire ride. The rain continued to fall during our TT's which made the rooster tails in the face really nice for everyone riding the TTT events!
The young guns started off and rode a 20K out and back route. They rode very well and represented Columbus and the valley very well. In the Juniors, we had Benjamin Weinbaum from the great state of Alabama competing for the state title. Ben was the fastest Jr. from Alabama in the 13- 15 group and won the state title!!! Gabe Denes Jr., not from Alabama, was second overall in the Jr's and won some cash. The rest of us had a full 40K team time trial. On the teams we had a full 4 man category 5 group with Jeff Davis, Shane Irvin, Bill Swain and Jonathan Cook. In the category 4's there was Matt Ragan and John Stowe. In the master's there was the ill fated team of Scott Matty, Gabe Denes, Adam Weinbaum and Steve Murray.
The master's group was the first to start from our group. On the way to the line, we lost Adam Weinbaum to a nature break and he missed the start. Scott, Gabe and I started out a little fast and Gabe paid the ultimate price as his legs refused to push that hard, Gabe was off the pace and fell back. Scott and I continued on and traded pulls every minute and a half. There was a slight tail wind going out and the course was flat. The roads was a pebble surface, but still quite fast. At the turn around point 20K into the ride, our average was 28.5 mph. (We were flying!!) We had passed three other teams at that point. After the turn we hit that same wind that had helped us going out. One word -OUCH! Our speed dropped and the suffering intensified. We took shorter pulls and continued to try to maintain the pace. I was worried that the Mellow Mushroom team would be gaining on us. They were two minutes back at the start, but they were young and looked strong. I had seen them after the turn and they were riding smooth. Our driving pace took its' toll around mile 19. Scott started fade just a little. We regained our composure and dropped the pace slightly to adjust. We pushed the remainder of the ride more from the desire to get off our bikes and end the suffering rather than winning anything. Scott reached deep and stood and sprinted the last 75 yards and we were done. Praise the lord! Our ending average was 26.5 mph. We won the Team Time Trial beating 9 other teams. Our finish time was 56:12. We had the third fastest overall time. Two pro/1/2 category riders had put in faster solo times.
Cat 5 team
We sat at the finish watching for the others as they were just behind us in the starting order. Matt and John came in exceptionally strong. Shortly thereafter - the c5's were approaching. They worked well together and launched two to the line to get the best time possible. Shane and Jon took the line with Jeff and Bill following close behind. In the middle of these two groups - Gabe and Adam rolled in. Adam had come to the line and found Scott and I gone and rode out chasing. Shannon Dickerson had also gone and suffered two flats 8 miles into the TT to end his race. We then waited for 2 hours for the results to post and finally left the metropolis of Sprott. Gabe has decided to come back next year and take the tandem title.
Did I mention there is nothing to do in Sprott? Well, if you look closely, you can see we were just sitting around watching Scott sleep. No one was able to ring his mouth with pieces of paper. Maybe next race!
No comments:
Post a Comment