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Written by Eric Larsson
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Monday, 01 December 2008 00:10 |
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Who could resist? Money for nothing and t-shirts for free. Talk of “the double loop” began back when it was warm. Trash talk started in when people started spending less time on the bike and more time online.
The event: the Saturday before Thanksgiving meant two laps around the usual Saturday Morning Ride loop with cash primes for all the usual sprints- and double primes the second time around. There was internet chatter suggesting we’d see some ringers like Mark McCormick and Dan Vaillancourt, but in the end the 60+ starters didn’t include any current or former pros. Cold like Rochester but no snow and clear skies. I favored a variant of the Lemond plan: for the first loop do nothing- if for no other reason than it was a bit warmer back there. Of course it was also a little difficult to see what was happening up at the pointy end. Thus, I know there was almost always some kind of attack off the front, but couldn’t really tell who was in it. Two low points both involving wind: In the short neutral section between the two loops a branch blew into someone’s front wheel and took him down. Then for the first couple miles of the second loop there was a sharp cross wind and no one willing to set up an echelon. That reduced the size of the peloton, and removed any illusions I had about seeing the front for one of those double primes. Still, at the end of the ride there was fresh coffee back at the shop, and I was out in front where it counted- in the line for homemade Belgian waffles.
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