DClog

Acknowledgment and Affirmation

Tracy Saine (John Deere)

From: Tracy Saine Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 3:42 PM To: Dan Coy Dan, You are a genius tactician! I did the race exactly like we talked about and won by 2 minutes. I'll post some details later. THANK YOU! I wouldn't have done the race that way without your advice. I OWE YOU ONE!!! Tracy

This past Thursday, Tracy had come over to the house to pick up his Maxxis tire order (through the Pro Purchase discount with GTC), and we discussed in detail, specific racing strategies for the 80-mile 3-gap course and ways of dealing with the regional category III racers. I really gave him very few options, he had to attack and not look back. I explained how the many seconds gained on the climbs would add up and the few seconds lost on the descents and flats would not be enough make up the difference. I basically reminded him of his achievements in those mountains and gave him the confidence to attack all the way to the finish.

-----Original Message----- From: Dan Coy To: Tracy Saine Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 4:03 PM Tracy, OFFENSE is the best defense. Don't let any attacks go up the road. Have your teammates set a brutal tempo from the start! On the climbs use (sacrifice) your best climbers until they can no longer control the front. Between the climbs use your strongest flatlanders. If your team can NOT dominate the pace, YOU must isolate the stronger riders. YOU should use every incline to increase the pressure and eliminate riders, including your weaker teammates (they should not chase you under any circumstances - following another chasing rider is OK though). YOU can climb those gaps better than anyone else can. Do NOT sit around and wait for someone else to attack. You have done the 3-gap TT and you know you can get around that loop all by yourself faster than anyone else around here can. You must get back to "Walmart Gap" alone, solo or with no more than one or two other riders. If you have only one rider with you at the end, you know what to do - I've seen you do it! If you get back to Dohlenega in a group of any size, your odds of winning are greatly reduced. Any other rider I would give completely different advice, but YOU should win this race in a most profound and definitive way! Dan

-----Original Message----- From: Tracy Saine Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 2:15 PM To: Dan Coy Dan, I'm planning on doing the Dahlonega race. Any thoughts on strategy??? We have to do 2 laps (~80 miles) so I think it might turn into a war of attrition! Tracy

*** Tracy's Race Report ***

EPIC!!! That's the only way to describe this one. We had a field of probably 50-60 riders, and I'd guess that about half that many finished. We had riders coming in for 30+ minutes after the finish. I bet nobody finished with more than a couple of other riders and most people came in all alone. I've never been in a race like this one, but I wish there were more like it! I really wanted to do well in this race since I grew up in Dahlonega, still have a lot of family and friends there and ride up there almost every weekend. I was totally stressing out about the strategy aspect though - especially once I found out we had to do 2 laps. I asked Dan for advice, and he was VERY adamant that I needed to be aggressive. The words that stuck in my head were "do not waste any of the climbs!" I was very apprehensive about doing the race like he said but decided to give it a go and see what happened. Here it is broken down by section of the race:

High School to R-Ranch
Like Dan suggested, I worked my way to the front and made the first attack on the curvy climb before the road flattens out and drops back down to R-Ranch. I'm sure everyone thought I was CRAZY for taking off so early in an 84-mile race (especially with all that was ahead!) so they just let me go. I got out of sight quickly because the road is very twisty in that section and started up Woody's by myself.

Woody's (1)
I decided not to go up Woody's extremely hard but hard enough so that if the pack was going to catch me, it was hopefully going to hurt some people. I got caught about halfway up the climb. The pack had thinned out somewhat so I think that first move accomplished the goal and helped set the tone for the day. I took the KOM sprint at the top and latched onto an L5 Flyers guy for the descent. We actually got a nice gap on the pack so I knew this guy would be a great wheel to follow on the downhills.

Valley (1)
This section was non-eventful. I just sat in and tried to stay somewhat close to the front in order to be in a good position for Wolfpen.

Wolfpen (1)
I wanted to hit this climb hard for a couple of reasons: 1) It's my favorite and 2) I wanted to get a gap so that I could do as much of that scary descent on my own as possible. I went hard and was the first over the top. The L5 Flyers guy came around me as we started going down so I got on his wheel again. We got down without any issues and without anybody trying to pass us.

Neel's (1)
This was the most painful climb of the race for me. I'm not sure who was on the front setting the pace, but it HURT! Part of the time, I think it was the L5 Flyers guy and part of the time I think it was a nice guy that I'm going to refer to as 'Big Calves' because I swear his calves were bigger than his thighs! I seriously thought I might be dropped. I was cursing Dan and his 'advice' at this point, thinking that I had gone out too hard, too soon and was now facing the consequences. It turns out Wolfpen and this climb must have hurt a lot of others as well because by the time we reached the top of Neel's, the 'lead pack' was down to 7.

Woody's (2)
I was still in worry mode at this point so I just sat on the back and didn't make any moves. This one didn't hurt nearly as much as Neel's so by the top, I started to feel like maybe I would be okay after all. There were no attacks or anything, but the guy that led us up most of the climb was looking VERY strong (and would soon make his move). I'm going to call him 'ECU' because it seems like that's what his kit had written on the back of it.

Valley (2)
I think the mileage and the climbs were starting to take their toll because I noticed several riders shaking and rubbing their legs during this section. ECU must have noticed too because this is where he made his move. He didn't really attack us but just kind of 'rode away' from the group. We discussed among ourselves that we would just try to keep him in sight and then try to reel him in on the climb up Wolfpen. I'm not sure exactly what happened (mechanical, people touched wheels, ?), but apparently we lost a rider or two somewhere in this section, one being the very strong climbing & descending L5Flyers guy. That was fortunate for us but unfortunate for him because he was looking strong.

Wolfpen (2)
Same thing as before, I tried to go up this one as hard as I could. I was first over the top among our group, but Big Calves and a Land Rover rider from SC were not far behind. We were getting some scary time checks though. I think ECU had ~1:30 on us at the start of the climb and closer to ~2:00 at the top. I was getting worried that the winning move had been made and I had missed it.

Neel's (2)
Big Calves, Land Rover and I went up Neel's as hard as we could to try and bring back some time on ECU. Not happening! I think the time check we got at the top of Neel's was ~2:50 so we were losing ground fast! I told them we needed to bomb the descent and give it one more shot to see if we could pull back any time so that's what we did. The Land Rover guy was a fantastic descender so I just latched on to his wheel and hung on. We actually dropped Big Calves so once we reached the bottom, it was just the two of us. The latest time check was ~2:20 so we pulled back some time, but I was afraid it probably wasn't enough with only ~12 miles to go.

Turner's Corner to R-Ranch
Land Rover and I continued to work really well together during this section. We weren't getting any time checks so I wasn't sure if we were gaining ground or not, but I think we were both giving it all that we had on our pulls. I tested the waters on a couple of the rollers and thought that he might be starting to weaken a little, but I wasn't totally sure. I just knew I didn't want to go to the finish with him because he looked like he would be a very good sprinter. I went all out on the last climb leading up to R-Ranch and opened up a very nice gap. So at this point, it's ECU in 1st, me in 2nd, Land Rover in 3rd and Big Calves in 4th with only ~7 miles to go.

R-Ranch to High School
The climb up to R-Ranch seemed A LOT longer than I remembered it being, but I kept going hard until it leveled out. Just as it started to level out, I saw a rider in the distance going so slow it's almost like he's stopped. I THINK I can make out 'ECU' on his jersey and sure enough, it's our guy! His jersey is completely unzipped, he looks like he's about to die and I swear he couldn't have been going more than 4 or 5 mph. Turns out he had completely cracked and had actually thrown up numerous times. I was afraid he would try and jump on my wheel so I tried to be quiet and zoom by him as fast as possible! Chasing the police escort, fighting off cramps in both legs and praying nobody would catch me is about all I remember from the rest of the race. I wish I had known my time gap because I might could have enjoyed the finish a little more. Turns out I got 1st by 2 minutes, Big Calves fought back to get 2nd, Land Rover was 3rd, I'm not sure who was 4th and I think ECU fell to 5th.

Time Trial & Omnium : I burned every match I had (and then some!) in the RR so I wasn't expecting to do much in the TT. I think I ended up 8th which put me 2nd in the omnium. They counted the TT as much as the RR which I was not expecting and did not find out about until afterwards (not that I would have been able to ride it any faster had I known!). Big Calves got 2nd in the TT so he ended up 1st in the omnium. They didn't factor in my 2 minute gap from the RR (which I thought was unfair!), but this RR was my number one goal for the season so for me, it was a great weekend.

Posted by dancoy at June 12, 2005 10:58 AM