Methow Valley Tour omnium - Road Race

My goal for today's road race stage of the 2009 Methow Valley Tour omnium was to stay out of trouble and finish with the bunch. Happily, I achieved that goal. It was a beautiful morning for a bike race with clear skies, temps in the 70s and only a little wind. The race for the category 4/5 field consisted of 4 laps of the the 13.5 mile Chewuch loop for a total of 54 miles. Once each lap we passed right through the center of downtown Winthrop.

Like last year, the first lap was pretty mellow. Our field of 70 or so rolled out neutral until we had passed through town and were out on the East Chewuch Road for the first time. When the officials honked their horn signalling us to race, there was no immediate acceleration as usually occurs. The pack continued at a pretty comfortable pace for the rest of the first lap, seemingly in no real hurry. That changed on the second lap.

Coming through town to start our second lap, the pace went up considerably and people began to drop off the back on the hills. I made sure I closed gaps in front of me and stayed in contact. Looking at video my wife shot of our pack each lap as we passed through the finish area, it looks like we lost at least a third of the field that lap.

On lap three, the pace seemed to relax again. Last year, the race became very nervous on lap three culminating in a crash that took down or delayed about half the field. This year, there seemed to me to be less of that. There was one solo attack for about half a lap, but other than that, very little aggression or driving of the pace and very little twitchiness in the pack.

I thought for sure that the pace would elevate again for the final lap and that riders might try their luck at getting off the front. The pace was high as we passed through town, but on the hill leaving town it was only slightly higher than the previous lap and the other hills on the East Chewuch were taken similarly. There were no serious attacks and the bunch seemed resigned to a sprint finish as we headed back in the West Chewuch Road and the final 6 miles or so to the finish.

To this point, I was not aware of any crashes in our field although their had been one or two close calls with the customary skidding and cussing from the involved riders. As we crested one of the final rises a few miles from the finish, I heard a rider go down behind me and off to the other side of the pack from me. I have no idea what happened as I was nearly at the back and the pace was steady at the time. I guess he probably touched wheels with the rider in front of him out of fatigue and loss of concentration.

With the finish approaching rapidly it was clear it was going to be a bunch sprint and I was not going to be a factor in it as I was sitting on at the back. I set my self up towards the right side of the bunch figuring that as people swung across the road at the 200m point, some room to pick up a couple places might appear on the right side. With about 25om to go however, the inevitable happened. Too many people trying to squeeze into too narrow a lane resulted in someone drifting onto the gravel shoulder and taking themselves and at least one other rider down with them. I had to slow to get around the crash and crossed the line at the tail end of the main field in 36th. Still, I had achieved my goal of finishing with the field and staying out of trouble. I had a great day and a great weekend racing my bike on my home roads and look forward to doing it all again here next year.