Tour of the Hilltowns, Windsor, MA

by Aaron Wolfe

This race has an awesome course profile, as in, awe….we have to climb that?? The climb is the infamous East Hawley Road, some 4-plus miles at 8% average? Is that really true? I don’t know, but that’s what I calculated from some past race reports I found.

About 90 of us in the 4/5 30+ group lined up in a 68-degree fog. Yes, a 4/5 race, with the constant calls of “slowing,” “braking.” We headed out and downhill for about the first 20 miles before making a right turn onto a highway to climbers’ heaven. My mission was to stay at the front so I went with all the moves. At 10%, a move is just a guy going slightly faster than you. The road turned and leveled, then turned and went up, over and over. Someone had painted encouragement on the road: “Brain to legs: More power!” Anthony O’Malley of Skyline was off the front about 20 yards with an unknown rider, and the Visit Britain boys Andrew Cohen and Ivry Semel were in hot pursuit. I moved up with them and went over the top in 5th.

If only that had been the finish. A group of about 20 formed and we caught O’Malley and the other guy. There were a couple of brief periods of racing like we didn’t want to get caught. One guy with an MTB team jersey had never ridden a paceline before and had to be taught on the job. But by the time we hit the bottom of the long climb up to the finish we were about 35. The finishing climb was about 10 miles, but only the last 2 were steep enough to make it hurt.

Your author, who neglected to take a self portrait, in Central Park.

My main mistake was thinking that we had about a mile more to go than we did, so when a move went with about 2 to go I picked up the pace just enough to get on at the back of it, planning to save my strength for the next effort that was sure to come. We turned off the main road at the point where I thought the finish was still a mile or so away. It was a wet corner. It was a wet and sandy corner. With rocks. Why was it not swept? I don’t know. I had a good, safe line. I looked up and saw the finish only about 100 yards away. I saw some bonehead swerve hard into my line. I instinctively tapped my brakes and hit the deck. I got up, shifted to the small ring, mounted and finished, losing about 5 places and any chance of contesting the sprint. Body and bike OK. I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed in myself for the stupid mistakes and coming in 25th when I had the legs to be right up there, but I’m feeling ready for Green Mountain and the hurt those New Englanders can dish out.

O’Malley finished 4th, Cohen 5th and Semel 7th. Ben Hughes, 33rd, Craig Goodstein 62nd.

Sleeping beauties Luis Perez and Francisco Liuzzi.