Race Report by Jen Rasmusson

(Poolesville, MD – Sat May 15) It was a great day for a 42 miles bike race! The weather was crisp and it hadn’t rained the night before as the weathermen had predicted, (Thank Heavens!) Our Women’s 1,2,3 field was quiet small (13 in total), as many of the up in coming women 3’s were racing in the afternoon to fight for their upgrade points, or many other riders stayed home because the just don’t like riding in the dirt. Poolseville Road Race is infamous; being successful on this course comes down to two things, 1st being lucky and not getting a flat and 2nd, being tenacious all the way through to the end.

The 1st two-laps were the expected slow grinding down of the legs including never forgetting the accelerations and attacks through the dirt section. Additionally, due to our small field there wasn’t much room for hiding or opportunity to get up the road solo as everyone wanted to get up the road.

Towards the end of lap-three you could feel girls getting tired and the CAWES Cycling team started throwing in some attacks, somewhere in amongst the counters teammate Heidi Goldberg (two-time Poolesville Winner) ended up off the front with one other CAWES Cycling rider. Soon after unattached, Leslie Jennings (current MABRA BAR Champion) bridged realizing this was the break that would stick I made the move to get across the gap to solidify a four-woman break for the bell lap.

The four of us worked well together. For the 1st time this season I was starting to feel some life in my legs again and Heidi Goldberg. has been riding extremely well. Having two Team Kenda riders in a four person break certainly gave us the advantage and the only trick was going to come down to splitting the group to take the win. Heidi and I talked and I really wanted the field sprint opportunity, but our advantage was that either one of us could go for it, depending on how the race unfolded.

About 1.5K out Heidi attacked and Leslie was able to make the move, but the CAWES Cycling rider seemed finished and had caused a big gap. Knowing the race was up the road I made the decision to try and get back up to them and attempt another counter to maybe still get rid of Leslie Jennings, or at least make it really tough.

I attempted another attack only to discover I too was cracked!!! Hmm…no superman legs yet…maybe not a good idea. At this point, we were about 600m from the finish and Heidi was sitting on my wheel. I heard Heidi say the infamous sprint words “Jen, I’m here” and that was it… I wound it up and drove them in to the 250-200m mark. The three CAWES Cycling racers had managed to bridge back on, attacked for the final field sprint… Heidi putts a valiant effort in, but getting nipped at the line by Leslie Jennings (unattached). Team Kenda finished with a great showing of 2nd and 4th place at one of the hardest Road Races MABRA (Mid-Atlantic Bicycle Racing Association) has to offer.

Check out the photograph here Photo Credit:  Jim Wilson Images