The Wheelsucker checked his calendar and decided he was not doing anything that important on Sunday and he could help.
He needed to be there Saturday by 18:00 for a team dinner, but being the Wheelsucker, he did the Saturday ABRT ride first (winning the sprint!) and then getting organized and driving to Philly. The Philly race had six rider teams; four ABRTers, Sue, Ainhoa, Amanda and Nikki were joined by Jenna App from Alaska and Alexis Zink of NCVC for the race. Alexis was arriving later, as she was racing Ride Sally Ride on Saturday.
Sans Alexis, the team enjoyed dinner and discussed the race. A final team meeting was held Saturday evening after Alexis arrived. The race was sixty miles; five laps of a twelve mile circuit that used Kelly Drive to string together the Manyunk Wall, Strawberry Hill and Lemon Hill.
The women’s race start was 8:30am Sunday. Mark and the Wheelsucker would be driving Nikki’s Honda Passport, and would be going to the feedzone on Kelly Drive. ABRT would not have a team car in the convoy. Everyone in a team car has to have a UCI support license so a team car could not be organized on short notice. Most of the ABRT team would start the race with three bottles (the third in a jersey pocket), so they did not expect to need many bottle handups.
Everyone was up and ready early. The riders cycled to the starting area, a short distance from the race hotel. But driving through the first intersection Mark and the Wheelsucker were one lane too far right and ended up on the interstate!
Oops!
They got off at the next exit and tried to recover. The Wheelsucker had misplaced the printed technical guide, so Mark was trying to read the technical guide maps from a PDF he was browsing on his smart phone. Once close to the race course area they found roads blocked everywhere, for the race. The police at each blocked intersection did not know at which intersection they could be let through.
What had started out as an early arrival with lots of time for the riders to warm up on their indoor trainers (carried in the back of the Passport) was turning into a big problem! Then Mark's phone rang; Amanda had kept her phone and was checking on them; "WHERE ARE YOU?"
Mark and the Wheelsucker stopped the Passport, pulled into someone’s driveway next to an intersection, and told Amanda what intersection they were at. The riders rode over a few minutes later, pumped up tires, refilled water bottles, and made last minute adjustments. There was no time to warm up on the trainers – OOPS!! -- and they rode back to the starting area. The riders seemed relatively calm about the situation; the Wheelsucker was close to distraught.
Mark and the Wheelsucker drove off and eventually made it to the intersection where the race convoy was forming. The convoy was so long it was backed up through the one access intersection, and they temporarily parked the Passport illegally, on the adjacent block.
This was not a small MABRA race. This was a UCI race, and for the women, the highest ranking UCI race in North America. So there was not just a lead vehicle and a motoref. There were police lead vehicles, official lead vehicles, VIP vehicles, police motorcycles, motorefs, more vehicles, 110 racers on bicycles, more official vehicles, more motorcycles, then team support cars, and behind all that a convoy of vehicles going to the feedzone. Mark and the Wheelsucker in the Passport were towards the back of that feedzone convoy.
The race started, the convoy rolled forward; in a couple of blocks they were driving on the actual course.
The race started at the top of the Manayunk Wall, and went downhill from there, FAST!
In the Passport it was full-on acceleration one moment and hitting the brakes the next, staying close to the vehicle in front. Nikki’s Passport has an automatic transmission and acceleration was … anemic. Actually the Passport’s ability to hold the vehicle in front closely resembled the Wheelsucker’s [in]ability to hold onto the wheel in front of him in races and training rides. So the Wheelsucker was very familiar with the problem.
Rather before arriving at the feedzone, just as the course turned onto Kelly Drive, two vehicles were stopped for a crash. The convoy squeezed by on the right. The Wheelsucker was driving (so Mark could navigate) and as the Passport rolled by he looked to his left to see what had happened and saw ABRT kit and dark hair. He blurted out “$)@&!, its Ainhoa!” and asked Mark if he wanted out; Mark did.
The Passport stopped for an instant and Mark jumped out. The Wheelsucker rejoined the convoy a few vehicles back and continued.
A little later on Kelly Drive people in the convoy saw the race going the other way on Kelly Drive, FAST!!. The Wheelsucker looked for the remaining five ABRT riders but could not see them all; he did account for three of them. The convoy continued to the feedzone and pulled in. The Wheelsucker parked, grabbed the cooler and set up.
Mark arrived a short time later, with Ainhoa’s bicycle. Ainhoa was on the way to emergency to have her very painful hip examined and X-rayed.
Then the race came through the feedzone; it was the second time through the feedzone for the racers (they were on the second lap), but the first time the feedzone was manned. Kelly Drive is very flat, and there was a strong tailwind, the riders went by FAST!!
While Kelly Drive was wide, flat, relatively straight and fast, the race also went through Manayunk and other neighborhoods with narrow streets. The transitions from three or four lanes to one were dangerous bottlenecks and sure enough there was a crash with about 25 riders going down, at one of these bottlenecks. Many riders were caught in or behind the crash; this split the race up. When the race came by the feedzone the next time, there was a decent sized lead group, and then a big gap. Amanda was in the first chase at about 1:40 back. Then there was a bigger gap to a smaller chase with Sue and Jenna (who had been caught behind the crash). As they sped by the Wheelsucker shouted "Ainhoa is out!" to Sue, but was not certain she had heard. It probably made little difference as the gaps were so large that Sue and Jenna could not have caught up to the next group up the road in order to implement some sort of “plan B” with Ainhoa -- the team sprinter -- out. But a lot of riders were missing; nothing close to 110 riders had gone by. The person next to the Wheelsucker in the feedzone looked up and said he had not seen ANY of his team’s riders go by. There was a long wait, and then stragglers came by in ones and twos.
One of the stragglers was Nikki who told Mark and the Wheelsucker, "Alexis broke her collarbone!" as she pedaled by.
Mark took a phone call from a strange number; it was Ainhoa on a borrowed phone. The outcome was that Mark needed to be at Hahnemann University Hospital. However, under no circumstances were any vehicles at the feedzone allowed to leave the feedzone parking lot until late in the race and then in a convoy escorted by officials. The best plan Mark and the Wheelsucker could come up with was for Mark to take one of the bicycles, ride to the hotel, put the bike in a hotel room, and drive to Hahnemann hospital.
Mark rode off, leaving the Wheelsucker alone in the feedzone. ABRT was down two riders, but still had four racing.
Meanwhile, the first two groups had recombined as riders from several teams had slowed the lead group to allow their leaders to catch back on after the crash. Amanda was in this recombined lead group. Officials were pulling riders who were too far behind; so Nikki was no longer racing. Sue and Jenna were in the third group on the road, a small one. With several of the five laps done, ABRT riders were running out of water; the Wheelsucker started handing up bottles to those who wanted them. The lead group split again with Amanda in the second group. That made Sue and Jenna’s group, group number four.
A rider from another team stopped in the feedzone with a painful cramp. She was able to straighten her leg and took a bottle from the Wheelsucker as she started to pedal again.
Mark texted the Wheelsucker that Ainhoa was probably going to be released soon, but that Alexis was not at the same hospital. Eventually Mark found out that Alexis was at Temple hospital, and once Ainhoa was released they drove over to Temple to find Alexis.
After the riders passed on the penultimate lap, everyone in the feedzone had to leave together in a second convoy, so it was a quick pack up after the last feed. The cars were lined up in the feedzone parking lot, the racers and vehicles went by, an official motioned the feedzone convoy back onto the course, and the convoy flew up Kelly Drive into Manayunk. There the convoy was let off the course, led up the hill on a road parallel to the Manayunk Wall, and then jammed into a narrow street. Vehicles were parked ANYWHERE… The Wheelsucker jammed the Passport onto the sidewalk before someone else thought of using that spot.
He pulled the cooler out of the Passport and raced to find a spot past the finish line so he could catch his riders when they finished and offer them cold water, Cliff bars and protein bars. The sprint for the win was amazing, with two riders wheel to wheel and Evelyn Stevens winning by inches.
Laura Van Gilder broke her chain a few feet from the finish and ran across the line wheeling her bike with her. She did not fall, did not falter and reacted instantly, losing at most one place and finishing. What a PRO!!!!
Nikki had already been pulled and found the Wheelsucker standing behind the barriers some distance past the finish line, at a right turn. The Wheelsucker asked her to direct the others to where he was as they finished.
Then Amanda rolled across with a solid finish. A little later Sue and Jenna rolled across. Eventually get everyone together next to the Passport.
The racers rode back to the hotel; the Wheelsucker followed them in the Passport.
Later, the Wheelsucker was looking out a hotel window and saw someone with ABRT kit and long hair walking up to the main entrance. It was Alexis returning with Ainhoa and Mark. The Wheelsucker went downstairs to meet them and saw Alexis with her arm in a sling, confirming the broken collarbone. DARN!!
A little later, while waiting for the others in the lobby, a racer named Nicole Mitchell (from Bermuda) approached the Wheelsucker to compliment two ABRTers who had been in the same group with her. According to Nicole they had both worked hard, even when others had not.
Jenna App left early to catch a plane, and the rest of the team went out for a late lunch before convoying home on I-95 south.
The Wheelsucker is a "pack fill" aging cat 3 masters racer. He is incredibly far away from being able to race against UCI pros. It is amazing that the ABRT elite women are good enough to do UCI pro races. The Wheelsucker considers it a privilege to support the team at such a high profile race. He hopes to be asked to support the team the next time they do this, and hopes to do a better job next time.
Cyclingnews report and results: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/philly-cycling-classic-2013/elite-women/results
Image with Amanda climbing Lemon Hill http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/philly-cycling-classic-2013/elite-women/photos/268220
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