Copperopolis Race Report

Kyle Fiori taking a turn at the front at Copperopolis

After riding the course and knowing who was racing in our field, I knew I would need help from teammates to stay in contact until the big climb. Sam and Matt signed up the week of the race and I was pretty excited to hear they were racing.

The morning of the race, I met up with Sam and Matt, we set up our trainers and warmed up a bit. Kristen came over and said they wanted us to roll out, so we had to cut our warm up a little short, but I figured we would get a good warm up in the first couple of miles of the race. The start of the race was slightly downhill, and immediately a racer from Peninsula Cycling attacked and the group went to chase. He didn’t get very far, before he was pulled back into the group, but the first mile was fast!!!  If it wasn’t for Sam and Matt, I think I would have been dropped, but they waited for me and made sure I stayed in contact. 

Fiori out of the saddle

The next mile was pretty slow (about 13-14 mph), and everybody was just looking around waiting for someone to attack. At that point I told myself that I needed to be ready for another attack. There was a small hill, before the big climb and that’s when the second attack came. The same guy (Duncan Reid from Peninsula) attacked again, and the group picked it up to chase. I stayed with the chase to the top of the small hill and was able to hang onto the group on the descent before the big climb.  As soon as we started to climb, the pace picked up, and my legs weren’t really recovered from the last attack, and about seven guys got off the front.  

 I felt pretty good about my climbing and figured that I would catch most of the guys on the climb. Sure enough I passed three guys within the first mile of the climb.  About half way up I spotted Rupert Cox from SBJC, I bridged up to him and looked to see if he wanted to work to chase the three remaining guys. We started a rotation, and were gaining on the front group. Every once in a while on a long stretch of road we could see them ahead, but with about 5 miles left (and the big descent), there opened up to about three minutes, and we knew we weren’t going to catch them. About a mile later, Rupert attacked and got about a 50meter gap on me. He opened that up more on the descent (hey I’m only 80 lbs, I just can’t go that fast downhill).  I knew I had a big enough gap for 5th, so I just rode hard all the way to the finish.

 Lessons learned:

1.       If I could have stayed with the front group in the first part of that climb, I think I could have hung with them most of the way up and not had to use so much energy chasing.

2.       When Rupert attacked and got a gap on me, I was on the front doing my pull. I think I should have been paying more attention. I was in the wrong gear at the start of an uphill and he just got the jump on me. I accelerated, but was in the wrong gear and couldn’t change fast enough.

 It was my best race this season, and gave me a little more confidence about racing with some of the stronger 14 year olds.  I also feel like the road races with climbing are definitely my strong suit.

 Can’t wait for the next one.