Green Mountain 2010 Race Report, by David Gazsi

click for biggerWhen I started to get serious about road racing about 10 years ago, there were 3 races that, from my limited perspective, held some of the cache of what big time stage racing was really like. I’ve had success in the GP Charlevoix, and at Sutton/NAM, but the one I’d always wanted the most was GMSR. I’d been on the podium there 3 different times, and won a stage or two, but had never won the overall.

This year, with the support of the whole family in tow, I was also running up against some great competition in the names of Fred Thomas who’d won Killington this year where I was 2^nd, Jonny Bold who’d won at Catskills, where I was 5^th, and David Taylor, who’s won a ton of races this year, and who’d won GMSR in the past.  The field was deep as well, and as normal, nobody comes to GMSR unprepared!

Stage 1 Time Trial

Tough start, a 9 km ride that climbs between 3-10% for about 4km, and is then rolling-descending for the rest. I had a bit of a panic as, after a great warm up, I had some technical difficulties with my disc, and had to make a literally last second switch to my road race wheel, helping me on the climb, hurting me for the rest.  I think ultimately it was probably fate as I rocketed the climb, felt amazing, and missed the podium by 1 second. Thomas and Bold were 1-2 with 3 seconds between, Pohndorf was at 20 seconds, and I was at 21.  As a couple of people told me, I was right where I needed to be.

Stage 2 Circuit Race

We did 85 km of a rolling and very windy (thanks Earl) course, with 2 ascents of a 5 km climb for KoM, and then just a fair amount of rolling around. I thought I’d test my legs on the KoM, but got boxed in on the first one, and then lead out Taylor for the second one (sometimes you need some friends, and he’d won the first) but the great feedback I was getting was that I was moving around easily on the climbs – many of the guys seemed like they were maxed, but I just felt smooth and confident. But with a windy day, a high-speed sprint finish, and very little likelihood of gaining real time, I mostly just kept the powder dry for Sunday. Interestingly, in the mass sprint finish, Bold took the jersey from Thomas with a GC time bonus, by getting 4^th, so Bold was in yellow for Sunday.

Stage 3  AppGap Road Race

The course was more or less the traditional route for Sunday, 112 km, with an extra climb at the beginning, some fast descending down to Middlebury Gap, a hard 5km climb there, followed by a harrowing descent to Ripton, then up the Notch and Bristol leg breakers, down to Baby Gap, and finally App Gap, 5 km of 10-20% grade on some beautiful switchbacks, with crowds cheering and road painting for good measure!

Not to be too dramatic, but this is my favourite day of racing every year, and is honestly one the reasons I race my bike – this stage is really a beautiful race. It was cloudy and cool, but never rainy, altho the wind was extreme at times, as we rolled off for the long neutral start. When racing began, I rode strong at the front, just eyeing up everyone, and making sure nothing silly happened.  On the way down to Middlebury, I covered a few moves, but realistically, Bold and team were never going to let me go anywhere, so when a solid rider names Carl Reglar, along with my buddy Cary Moretti, both in the top 10, road away with a third rider, one of Bold’s teammates, who was chasing sprint points, I thought it was a good situation. First off, I was happy for Cary, but also thought both those guys could easily out-climb Bold’s teammate, so he wasn’t really protected, and he and lots of others would be motivated to chase.

Then some strange stuff happened. We caught and passed the S3 field, who’d had a 10 minute head start, and then at the bottom of Middlebury Gap, they caught us back, which forced our field to be neutralized – most of the way up the climb and for over ten minutes – very strange indeed, racing up one of the key strategic points of the race and chatting together. We also heard they were not neutralizing the break, so we thought the day was done... we found out later they had, but it had a strange effect on the race for a while.  First, we descended Middlebury into Ripton, a fast and dangerous descent that has many tough off-camber corners, as a large group, because we’d ascended together. That was dicey for sure.  After that, and still a peloton of 50 strong, we sort of rolled down towards the Notch climb not really sure what to do... nobody wanted to chase thinking that the gap was too big, and while I’d committed not to chase in a big effort to bring Cary back, I was still there to race... 

So we got to the Notch climb which is a crazy steep 15% for 300 meters, followed by 3 kms of rolling nutty gravel – I attacked up the climb, forced a selection with Bold and a few others, and we were off.  By the time we got down to Bristol, we were about 15 guys I think, and then Taylor comes by on this steep leg-breaker into Bristol, and gives me the eyes, like, ‘lets go’... me, Bold, Taylor, Pohndorf, Lattanzi and one other guy got into a team pursuit that took 2 minutes out of the break in about 15 kms. By the right hand turn into Baby Gap, it was down to 30 seconds, we could see them, and sort of rode steady hard as a group while we gathered ourselves for the final ascent.

As we crested Baby Gap, for the quick descent to the bottom of App Gap, we finally closed the break down, and as we started the climb, I really felt great – I was tired of course, but this is what I want every year, the chance to win the stage, or the race, with a fight against the best guys on this epic climb. So I attacked on the first corner, again on the second, and on the third and took 9 guys down to a suffering 5... Then when Bold started to really look in trouble, Taylor attacked, and I buried myself for about 500 meters, looked back, and we were gone.  At that point, for the first time, I stopped racing for the stage and started racing for the GC. Thomas was gone, he’d flatted, and now Bold was in serious trouble. Taylor was just tapping it out – I told him the next day he looked like pure class on the day, really smooth, while I yo-yo’ed off his wheel. But every time I accelerated back up to him, I was putting time into Bold, so I just kept using him to keep me going. The string finally broke at about 500 meters, but I looked back and couldn’t see yellow, and I only needed 23 seconds, so I just kept standing and sitting and pushing the pace, thinking of yellow, and (if not too dramatic!) of Sydney, Will and Vicki at the top watching me... I got to the line, 20 seconds down on Taylor, and a minute and a half up on Bold – I had the jersey!

Stage 4 Burlington Crit

click for bigger1 km  course, 6 corners, and I’d been here before, having lost the jersey in the crit on points a few years back. Not today.  I must say without trying to sound too full, that I had great legs, and that’s a testament to Coach Ian Fraser for sure. I’ve done this stage so many years, and this super hard course after 3 days of really hard racing is brutal, and its when you’re right on the edge that you know where your fitness and strength really is.  The difference for me was that I had complete confidence moving thru the bunch, confidence that my legs would put me where I needed to be and that I could make moves to take back spots and be aggressive that in other years I’d have been afraid to try. Not that fear wasn’t present, because there were at least 4 crashes in the race, one that included a friend from Endurosport, Andrew Stewart, breaking his collarbone with a lap to go, and one in the last high speed corner into the finish that caused an 8 second gap to open. Regardless, I held my spot, rode strong, used the yellow jersey magic by recruiting the odd friend here and there, including Carl Kiifner from Ottawa who piloted me around the last lap, and then finally, quickly, I was done...I sprinted for the line, and then heard over the PA that it was official, I’d finally won the Green Mountain Stage Race.

I was super happy to have the family there, and receive all the congratulations from other riders, I have to say. It was awesome to have got the win in a class field as well – Thomas, Bold and I shared a moment reflecting on how we’d each worn the jersey this week, and how we’d shared KSR, Catskills and GMSR while battling all season – that made it sweet for sure, and so did the many emails and FB posts I got as well. So thanks for all the good wishes, special thanks to the family and to the guys at Cyclelogik as always, and sorry this was so damn long!