[Special Note: I have a "Music Player" gadget, 4th down to the right. You may run audio from it or the video as you see fit by pausing the music player or muting the embedded video. Enjoy!]
Hello and here's my condensed analysis of the Missouri State Road Race that was held in Ste. Genevieve on May 23, 2010. The course was 87 miles on a rolling course with a couple of good climbs. Pretty good temperature around 90 degrees, but a large sudden jump from weeks of 50-60 degrees and rainy. The field size was relatively small maybe 35 or so riders, and predominately 3 large teams consisting of Dogfish (largest numbers, and with defending champion), Tradewind (very powerful team), and Mesa.
Several break-a-ways were attempted early. I found (as usual) that whenever I would jump into a break that was allowed to roll away, suddenly this break was pursued quite heavily. This occurred repetitively and without exception.
My main goal was to try to win the State Championship, and not the overall race (I considered it nearly impossible to win against the out-of-state team Tradewind). By my estimation I mainly needed to mark Austin Allison (defending state champion) and his teammate Justin Maciekowicz.
As it turned out, Justin did a long solo suicide (nobody bridged up) attempt and was indeed brought back. Allison escaped into the final break-a-way, which had other riders that I knew where not in contention for the State Championship. The break had the major teams in it and because of team tactics, I could not reasonably pursue. This did not worry me too much for at least 2 reasons. 1., Allison was the defending champion, a young rider and by my estimation a good Missouri Champion, and 2., I thought he might crack in the heat. He is a very fair skinned person.
Guess what...... he did totally crack (sorry Austin)!
So as my chase group road past Allison, who was barely limping along, I then knew that I was racing for the title again. My group had only four riders including Jim Vandeven (he told me he was not from Missouri) Matias Mendigochea (he told me he was not from Missouri) and that left Oreste (Rusty) Pesselato (who told me that HE WAS FROM MISSOURI).
So as we approached the finish, we left the country roads and started making unknown turns into the town finish. We didn't know the roads and the corner marshals were critical for us in making the correct turns.
Unfortunately as we approached the final intersection/corner marshal, we saw the corner marshal STANDING IN THE ROAD (initially) and then as we continued our rapid approach she moved out of the road and pointed LEFT to the street that she was supposed to be securing for us from vehicles!!!!
It turns out that the reason that she was pointing left was to point at a spot in the road that she thought was dangerous. UGGH!
The rest is in the video. Rusty had a mis-shift and I was stuck in my small chainring on the final sprint. No biggie.
Question: who was the first Missourian to cross the line?
Answer: See below.
