John Meyers' Report: Hillsboro Roubaix Wrap

Ah yes, Hillsboro…the first “real” race of the year. This race is what motivates us in January and is one of the classic races of the Midwest. Epic roads, a smattering of cobbles, a couple of short climbs, and (hopefully) a little wind to boot all make for a great race.

Before I go on, I’d like to mention the fact that the lady friend got 2nd in her race. A late hillclimb attack netted her a big gap, and her compatriot just barely came around her at the end. I have the feeling she’ll be winning some races soon.

Anyways, us ABD/Gear Grinder boys met up in St. Louis region for a few days of training camp prior to the race; we did some motorpacing, poked fun at each other, and generally had a good time.

We showed up for Hillsboro ready to rock. The plan A for the race was to hope for wind, and do some damage as a team early. Unfortunately, the wind wasn’t quite as brisk as we had hoped/expected. Plan B? Race hard and smart. Be present in the inevitable early break, and be a force in the later breaks. Keep the numbers in our favor.

The race rolled out fairly lacsidasical, and it took a couple miles before attacks came. There was a brief fury of moves, and when they all came back, Jordan Roessingh of ISCorp fired off an attack that no one wanted to chase. Soon, Bill Stolte of Trek/VW took chase with our very own Ryan White. This was to be the three man break of the day. The three of them had an 80 mile time trial ahead of them. Youch. Sounds like something I would do.

That left us ABD/Gear Grinder boys in the position of playing defense. We sat on everything, conserved energy, and waited. Many times things would start to heat up in the field, but never was there quite enough impetus to blow things apart—likely due to the fact that any time someone attacked, we were right on the tail end enjoying the free ride.

Anyways, little of notice occurred in the first 2/3 of the race as the gap to Ryan’s group got as big as 6 minutes. I covered lots and lots of moves, watched Steve Tilford remove half of his clothing in the middle of the pack, and also saw the biggest horse I’ve probably ever seen in my entire life. Unfortunately, we lost Jeff Shroetlin, a valuable teammate, to a crash and a slow wheel change. He did a 40 mile time trial and still rode through blown riders to grab 28th.

The last 30 or so miles saw the pace start to ramp up. Solo flyer Mr. Druber put his nose to the wind and dragged the race out in the gutter at the end of the third lap, and coming into town the pace got a bit hotter. ABD/Gear Grinder was at the front the whole time. At the start of the final lap, a group of 7-8 riders finally broke the elastic. Josh was in it alone. Not good. I bridged up with another rider. Better. We now had 3 riders in the top 11-12 spots with Ryan still further off the front.

This larger break started to bust at the seams due to attacks from the likes of Brian Jenson (Successful Living) and the Trek VW guys (Tilford, Mills). At one point I looked back and saw the field no more than 20 seconds back, and decided I’d do my best to push the pace, keep the break together in front of the pack, and hope that my teammate Josh Carter could outkick the guys who were left in the break. Bad call. I took a pull, flicked off, and got slammed with an attack near the bottom of the hill. There was no getting on the train at that point.

I went into TT mode, and slowly caught dropped riders from the break. We duked it out, and I got 2nd of our shattered group of four riders for 9th. Josh’s group had caught the early breakaway of Jordan, Bill and Ryan in the closing miles, but was tag teamed by the three Trek VW riders to finish 5th. Ryan White held on for 7th after 80 miles in the break. Rob White got away from the bunch at the very end for 11th.

While we were definitely looking for the win, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th, isn’t too bad. Overall, a solid race. Had I played my cards a bit smarter, ABD/GG would have perhaps had a more solid position going into the finale. Lesson learned. Overall though, I think we showed we are a force to be reckoned with, and the cards should be falling in our favor soon. Only more top results to come!

Back to collegiate racing for me next weekend. I love the Marian crit course so much that I might even race it twice on Saturday!