Hollenbeck's Race - Virgil, NY May 6, 2007

While Bellas Carolyn and Jan-o were kicking butt running the 10 mile Mountain Goat, other CNY Bellas road raced just a bit more than that today for the 22 miler near Greek Peak Ski Center. The payoffs of doing this early race are as you can see from the pics, fun with friends, and amazing and enormous cookies from the Ithaca Bakery. (oh, yeah, and decent apples too) We were joined by a tri-geek (she was actually very nice) named Kira, from LiLynn's neck of the woods, who was a very "strong girl". So after a painful warmup climb and a quick group pee (and no, that isn't a CNY Bella tradition), we were off.

This reporter did the men's 35+ race, opting out of doing two loops with the 1-2-3 women, knowing at this state of the game I'd surely be riding at least one full loop, if not more, by myself and in the wind. Briefly, my race was uneventful, fun, I wasn't last, and I had a group of guys to work with, so it was a good choice.
Now the real racers: according to the grrrrls, things started out respectably gently until the hill, where naturally, things changed. LiLynn was surprised to be feeling as good as she did, considering she'd done an unexpected 50 mile adventure ride yesterday, and she decided maybe she was more of a hill climber than she had thought. Things broke up pretty seriously, and Sue and Jenn were in differing places on the climb.

LiLynn found herself in no-woman's land for a lot of the race, faster on the hill than her bella sisters, but not fast enough to be up with the bigger guns. With "the wall" behind them, the group with Sue did manage to catch up to LiLynn, who'd been tt-ing into the wind, and they got a little pace line going, but predictably, there was one woman who sat on their wheels and refused to pull, despite LiLynn's questioning, if "she knew how to work?" The group clawed their way up the final, cruel climb, and our Bellas had a great finish, though as expected, the non-worker nipped Sue at the line. (Boy, do I hate that!) Jenn came in not too much longer and was buoyed by our hoots and cheers as she grumpily chugged up the hill - to the crowd's pleasure, she hung on the brakes for a second just before crossing the finish line and neatly did a hint of a wheelie as she lifted her front wheel for effect across the line.
Final results, Lilynn 11th, Sue A. 12th, Jenn 19th. Way to go, grrrrls!