Race Report Purgatory Road Race pro,1,2

Wow really hard!   When I read the description of the course I had a feeling it was going to be difficult given the nature of the technical the sending and gradual climbs. It turned out the race was much harder

As you can see the course is rolling.

than it would read on the posts. Quick course description you started a school neutral roll out and make a left turn onto the course continuing neutral down the Hill and then being allowed to race with a small sign on the side of the road. This first road has a few short rolling climbs in a couple stand uppunchy climbs make your next right here turn it was a long gradual climb into another right hand turn this next road at some gradual ups and downs and then took another sweeping right-hand turn got a bit steeper here with a few something grates. It climbed up to another right-hand turn fall flat at the top sweeping descent by big lake and then a right turn the final climb which is approximately 1 columnar with a few steep pitches in the first 500 m and then rolling up to the spot finish. You then sweep down the Hill and make a right turn onto the decent that you started the initial lap on.

Yea, try doing it seven times and then it REALLY gets to be rolling.

The field was pretty small maybe about 50 guys in the weather was humid and warm. Start off with some fairly fast riding would people sprinting over the small rollers on the initial decent. A familiar pattern began to emerge small groups would roll away get a large gap and lose probably 30 seconds of it on the finish climb. the field was either tired or hot because we frequently slow down in the breaks were not making any progress up the road.  The funny thing is most of the first hot races of every year follow the same pattern,everyone over heats and rides slower.  At the race occasionally the whole field would be coasting along no one wanting to pedal.  So gaps opened up easily but groups would come right back without too much effort at least at first.

We showed up with three guys, Shawn Forsythe Dylan McNicholas and myself. Since we had a good chance of winning the race with Dylan, Shawn and I both sacrificed our races so that he might have a chance of winning.  Shawn pulled hard into the bottom of the climb to bring the race back together and he got popped. Later on I did the same thing the first time getting dropped in catching back up and the second time leading into the final climb on the next-to-last lap was the last pull I did for the day. Dylan finished the race off with getting third.  I stopped with one to go,honestly thinking it was the finish,but it didn’t really matter.  They said one more and I said not for me!

Main Stats for Race:

• Distance 70 miles
• Climb 5,355
• Average Speed 23.1mph
• Steepest Gradient 14%
• Max Speed 48mph