NA Masters Champs, Sutton, Que. by David Gazsi

David Gazsi and Steve Proulx duking it out. click for bigger.Last week, headed down to Sutton for the North American Masters Championships with teammates Paul Chedore and Alistair Scott. The race is 4 stages, an uphill prologue Friday night, a 13km TT Saturday morning, a 40km crit Saturday afternoon, and a 115km hilly road race Sunday morning. Defending last year’s win was going to be very tough this year. The field was nearly 120 deep, with steep competition on many fronts, most significantly from Roger Aspholm, a US rider I know well and have been chasing for years. Roger was bringing 4 teammates, and was on top of his game to say the least.

Stage 1 – just before the climb starts, a nasty crash happened right in front of me, and I got held up a bit. The base of the climb has a really stiff 15% section in it, and by the time we crested that, I was back to the front, but my heart rate was racing, and simply never came down. I rode with Roger and a few other guys at the front, and covered a few moves, hoping to recover before it got really hard... but off of one of my covers, Roger attacked, and with 3 km left, he simply rode away... I basically pulled from there to the 300m mark, with one other guy, simply trying to limit the GC damage while thers seemed more interested in sitting on and jumping for the sprint for 2nd... I rolled in top 10, same time as the group, satisfied that nobody else was any stronger despite how terrible I’d felt, but a little in awe of Roger’s ride who’d finished 19 seconds up on the chase group.

Stage 2 – 13 km TT, slightly net uphill, sort of rolling down for 5 km, then rolling up for 8, with some awesome S turns at high speed. Well, I nailed it – I rode over a minute faster than my winning time of last year, helped by a tailwind, and averaged over 48 kph. And that only got me 4th...! I would have won the A race, so I KNOW it was good, but Roger put another 19 seconds into me to win it, and 2 other Americans finished 2-3 seconds ahead of me... so after 2 stages, sitting 2nd overall.

Stage 3 – 40km crit, 115 guys, tight course, scorching hot... I’m not a huge fan, but I tail gunned my way around the course, getting around about 60 dropped guys to finish on the tail end of the main group that had been whittled down to 50 or so... However, only 3 laps into the race, Roger had attacked, and brought his teammate with him, and they put 90 seconds into the field... Roger gave the win to his mate, and the rout was on... additionally brutal was that his teammate vaulted past me on GC, and Jon Card, another strong American, took over 3rd when I was judged to be gapped in the finale due to a guy rolling his tire in the last corner right in front of me... tough result. I spoke to the commissaries after the race, fearing that, and they told me not to worry... but Sunday morning, there it was, gapped by 3 seconds down to 4th, by 2 seconds... argh!

Stage 4 – 115km road race, lots of rolling descending for 50k, then some real hard climbing for 10, then some rolling ascending for another 50, and then 5 k straight up to finish. A break went early, with Jon Gee and a few other strong guys, but with Roger and teammate both in the peloton, I just sat in and tried to conserve. When we got to the 50 k mark, I went to the front, and with a couple of excruciating surges away from, and then glued to, Roger’s wheel, the two of us brought back and went right over top of the break, but there was a bunch of descending in the middle of that climb, and so 50 guys or so came back together... My only shot was to get into something with Roger and without Card, in order to try to get back to 3rd or maybe 2nd, so I took turns with Roger and 1 or 2 other guys attacking relentlessly... at one point, on a series of super steep little climbs, I thought the race was done, having missed a move that had Roger, Eric Prevost, and 4 others... but I worked with Card and a couple of others to bring it back again... and then, well, Roger grew tired of the company... I mean we’d been racing absolutely flat out for 3 days and full gas for the last 30 minutes, when he just left... he attacked so hard just as I’d bridged that everyone literally just sat up, waving the white flag.... for 50 k after that, I tried everything to get away, but Roger’s teammates and Card were vigilant, and even down to the last 500 meters, when I threw everything into a last attack on the final climb to gain 2 seconds and my podium spot back, Card covered, and I sat up, knowing I was beat on this one... A bunch of guys passed me in the finale but regards GC, it was irrelevant, and I finished 4th overall... meanwhile, Roger had put 6:30 into the peloton in 50 headwind kms... a truly dominating performance against a class field, like I doubt I’ll ever see again.

Regardless, I felt okay with the weekend – the circumstances of the crit with both Roger’s teammate gaining so much time, and the mishap in the last corner, left me feeling like I’d really only been beat by one insanely heroic performance, and there was no shame in that. And big kudos to my teammate Paul who hung in all weekend, riding within himself in the prologue, solid in the TT, great in the crit, and surviving an epic road race, to finish 41st overall, to another local old guy, Jon Gee, for finishing a very strong 5th overall, and to Steve Proulx for his 2nd place in the prologue.

See you Saturday in the park!