Vance Creek Road Race

This was my first time doing the Vance creek road race. It's in Elma by the massive decommissioned nuclear cooling towers. The engineer in me gets pretty excited at seeing such giant structures even if they are no longer in operation.

The women's 1,2 field was a small group of 11. It started raining before the race and we huddled in the car trying to decide whether to warm up for a 66 mile race. I saw Jen riding the rollers so I decided to spin the legs for a bit. Jen lent me her trainer since mine is broken so I felt obligated to use it.

I've never ridden that course before so I was a little nervous on the wet roads. We zoomed down the hill after the start which was pretty fun. We took the corners pretty slow and I found out that cow dung is really really slippery. I lost traction in a corner and almost bit it. I was really careful after that. I really didn't want to crash in that yucky muck.

Our race had four Wines riders, four racers without other teammates and three Avanti's - Liz, Jen, and Me. On the first lap there were some attacks but nobody for very long except Sirikit. The first time she attacked we all took it pretty seriously and everybody except the Wines girls (her team) helped pull it back. She has been known to attack and stay off for an entire race so we watched her closely. I thought she would have been toasted but she attacked about three more times in the race, very impressive.

I made it up the hill two and a half times with the group then on the third time up Suz attacked pretty hard and my legs started screaming. None of those girls except Jen were at the time trial the day before! Jen and Liz hung on though. Four of us came off the back at the same time. Two riders were just up the road and I was behind one other woman. But the gal ahead of me quit and I couldn't make it back up to the other two. But I did my last two laps alone and finished for 10th. The course was a fun one to ride and I'm glad I kept going. Liz and Jen got 5th and 6th.

The race was fun but I would have enjoyed it more in sunshine!