PIR June 6th 09

I further violated my “no pack racing” rule this Tuesday by riding the 4/5’s at PIR. My first infraction was helping Dean (Mr. Blog”)at Piece of Cake in March and that ended well.

My stepson Aaron started racing this year after only 2 years of riding.  He rode with the PSU collegiate team as well as a couple other races.  He called me up and said he was going to do PIR again this week.  I thought it’d be fun (and it was) so I agreed, all the while remembering the reason for not doing pack racing was to not test the quality of my health insurance plan’s hospitalization coverage.

Looking around at the perhaps 35-40 riders, there was a very diverse group of barely teenagers, old guys with “enhanced” midranges, several collegiate riders, and a few regular teams.  With the “no crashes” motto running through my mind, I went right near the front and stayed there most of the time.  Aaron and I stuck reasonably close as well.

Fortunately, bike handling of those that remained in the group was not sketchy so that fear was reduced as the race wore on for 6 very short laps.  We yo-yo’d from 21-27mph, averaging around 24.5mph for the whole ride.

No real attempts at breakaways other than one brave soul on the last lap.  I bridged up but then it was gruppo compacto.  We would up for the usual bunch sprint at the end.  I had one dicey moment when a rider in front of me suddenly decided to pull right abrubtly and got against my front wheel.  I rode it out but wasn’t sure how it was going to end for a moment there.

Aaron put more into the sprint than I did, getting 10th, me showing at 22nd.  I sprinted some but didn’t really care about where I finished, just wanted to end the experience upright. Mission accomplished.

I did some quick math on my last PIR when driving to the track.

In fact, it as 32 years ago in 1977.  Man I’m old!