The first of the Bloomington classic Wednesday Worlds training ‘rides’ took place this past…err…Wednesday…out on 6laps the popular 446 loop. Although student participation was down due to the nearness of L5 qualifications there was a remarkable show of strength from Team Tortuga with approximately 15 members of the team in attendance. Therefore the two members of Morris Trucking, Tom Cox and Mike Feske, must have felt they were battling the sea of blue and green jerseys! However as it often is, it was everyman for himself with some riders taking a back seat and others needing to be driving the pace on at every available opportunity. Prominent amongst the latter were Ren-Jay Shei and Tom Saccone who is excellently filling Chris Kroll’s presidential cleats both on and off the bike!
The most significant break of the day emerged after Gary Palmer tore up the rise on 446 before pulling off and bidding adieu those of us gasping in his wake. This attack resulted in a half lap escape by Ren-Jay and Mike Brauner who were slowly pulled back by the hard working group of Saccone, Myron Lewis, Taylor Gaines, Tim Heffner and Geraint Parry.
Parity was maintained over the 446 rise on the final lap before Parry kept the pace high(ish) before pulling off at the final turn.
The finale is described by Tom Saccone-
‘We rounded the top corner into the wind, Ren-Jay joined Bruce Millar at the front and
rolled off to a small gap of 20 meters. They held this for a couple of
hundred meters, forcing a chase from Mike Feske, who closed the gap. With
400 to go Heffner moved to the front of the train and began the
wind-up and took us to the 250 mark. With the wind sweeping the field
from the right, Feske jumped hard on the left to the center of the road.
I was on his wheel. Tom Cox was coming up hard on his left. At 100 I broke
to the right, passing Feske, but Cox was in control on the left and beat
me by a bike length’
So strength in numbers wasn’t enough for Tortuga THIS week but all agreed it was a great start to the year! Next week- into the hills on the forest loop.