The Internet of Bikes: 2014 Lake Sunappe Road Race

The Lake Sunappee Road Race is one of the longest running road races in New England. It attracts a good size field each year. I joined Downeast Racing Team riders Travis Kroot, Matt Moon, Eliot Pitney and Dan Vallaincourt for the Pro 123 race. Temperatures were in the 60s. It was damp but clear. The sun was out. The course was changed this year due to construction on Route 103. The race instead followed narrow and twisting Route 103B and Jobs Creek Road around the western edge of Lake Sunappee and was about ten miles shorter than usual. The rest of the course was the same. About 65 riders started the 60 mile race. I was running FOS 38T tubulars on my Austro-Daimler Superleicht Carbon Di2. The bike and the wheels performed very well.

There were a few attacks right from the start. Dan and Matt covered them. None of the breaks stuck. The new section was rough in places and featured some decent hills and fast descents. The key moment arrived half way through the second lap, on the long hill that leads up to the climbs on the northern part of the lake. A few riders pushed the pace and created a gap. Dan and I were there. Dan said "Hit this". So I did. I joined the four riders and pushed the pace into the next climb. All three riders decided to ease up. I did not and soon I had a material gap. At the beginning of the decent into Newbury, no one was in sight and I had the wheel van. A move this bold and this early was not the plan, but I had a gap so I decided to keep it. I concentrated on keeping the pace as high as possible but as steady as possible too, in order to exploit the peloton's naturally erratic speed.

I made good time on 103B. On the straight section outside of Sunappee, I could see a chase group of about six riders; they were not that far back (15 seconds or so), but they were having a hard time keeping me in sight. I ducked on to Job's Creek Road, another twisting and narrow section and was out of sight once again. This worked to my advantage as my time gap increased here. The northern climbs were hard third time through, but I kept the pace steady and avoided over doing it. On the descent I spun out my gears and tried to recover a bit. The three rollers before the circle were the last test. Thankfully there was a tailwind. I arrived at the circle very eager to get up the access road climb. There was some riders in the circle, but fortunately they did not slow things down too much; the chase group had apparently faded to 40 seconds back and they were not in sight; I did not dare look.  

I lost many seconds on the first section of the access road climb. It is steep and there was a head wind. But as climb eased up, I realized that I was not going to be caught and that I was going to have solo finish at Lake Sunappee. It was a fine treat. Nine years of trying and it finally worked out. I could not have done it without the support of the Downeast Racing team I am sure. Hopefully, an image of that finish will surface one day.