Races
Results and Reports

Race Report
April 13, 2005

By Katie Frato

Vtech race report

Team members:
Lora Bankova
Matt Brancheau
Priscilla Pang
Katie Ross
Cliff Smoot
Fred Tan
Toby Weatherall
Katie Frato

With a long drive to Blacksburg Virginia ahead of us, we all met a Priscilla’s for team dinner (chicken parm…yum!). By the time we packed six bikes on Fred’s little car and a weekend’s worth of gear into Matt’s van, we were a bit later than we had planned. It was after midnight by the time we rolled into the red carpet inn in Blacksburg.

Early the next morning, we were back in the cars and headed to Maggie, Virginia for the road race. Katie warned us to stay awake on the trip, since it turns out that the road to Maggie took us up and over the race’s finishing climb. As the cars groaned up the mountain (this mountain gets bigger every time I tell this story!) we realized that Priscilla and Katie hadn’t been exaggerating about the climb.

The course was absolutely beautiful, with a rolling fifteen-mile loop (done the appropriate number of times for each category) and then up the mountain for the finish at the top. The loop had a pretty substantial climb in the middle, enough to string the fields out and make sure the legs where plenty sore before the final climb. And the weather couldn’t have been better, with continuous sunshine and temps in the mid-sixties.

And now for the race! Cliff, representing us in the mens C field, was looking good until a flat tire. I was riding women’s B, and thanks to two chain drops in the first lap, I lost the first group. I caught up with a Duke rider (the tallest girl in the field, what luck!) and we managed to catch the second group before the final climb. The final climb was so painful; I was on my lowest possible gear, barely turning the gears over. I passed a person walking the final stretch to finish 9th.

The afternoon sent off the women’s A and mens B and A fields. Matt, our ace in the mens B, and was sitting cool in the pack. At the feed zone a Duke rider cut across (out of nowhere!) the whole street’s worth of riders and crashed into Matt, pushing them both into the people manning the feed. Everyone was okay, but Matt’s bike was a bit twisted up, so that was the end of his race. Toby was hanging with the big men of the men’s A until his Trek mis-shifted. Priscilla, Lora and Katie made an awesome team in the women’s A, working together to stay with the lead group. Lora, Priscilla, and Katie finished 12th, 13th and 15th, respectively.

We returned to Blacksburg for pizza and pasta at a local hangout near campus. Matt, Toby, Priscilla and Katie went to the conference meeting after dinner, while the rest of us goofed off, playing Frisbee in the vetch quad (Lora and I drove Cliff crazy with our horrible Frisbee aim!) and cruisin’ in the Fred-mobile. Then it was time for ice cream and sleep.

Sunday morning was another beautiful day of warm weather and sunshine. The time trial course was fourteen miles and despite the fact that we were almost in West Virginia, the course was almost perfectly flat through a river valley. By noontime the river was full of cyclists splashing around in their spandex to cool off. It was a fast out and back route, with some false flats and long straightaways. All our people made solid finishes, and even Fred, in his first ride since his “whooping cough”, rode the time trial! Toby was 27th in mens A, Matt was 21st in mens B, Cliff and Fred were 10th and 27th in mens C, Lora, Priscilla and Katie were 5th , 7th and 13th in womens A and I finished 7th in womens B.

By midafternoon we packed everything up and stopped by IHOP for midafternoon breakfast, where we had possibly the slowest service ever (did Priscilla ever actually get her order?). Then it was a long haul back to JHU. All in all, an awesome race weekend!