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Greetings race fans, supporters, and all the men and women of the world,

I’ve been called upon to prepare you guys a race report from the soggy, and windy Lancaster Classic. I find myself particularly enthused to write this report due to the fact that it will further push that overzealous race report from Raleigh, held liable for me throwing up in my mouth, further down the page. Cheers to that.

Without further banter, I present to you the Lancaster Classic as seen through my eyes:

Drops of water on my lenses… a bit of fog and low visibility here and there… some rain… some good crashes… and some more rain.

Thanks for reading.

Austin King

Ok, I suppose I should elaborate on that before signing off. So here we go… The Lancaster Classic is one of America’s premier cycling events and it sits firmly on the list of one of the 3 “Philly Week” races. On the course, I don’t think there is one kilometer of flat road; up, down, up, down, and up again. Throw in several turns per lap and you have the making of a classic circuit race course. The difficult part of Lancaster is not only the undulating course, but also the fast pace. The race stays strung out for most of the day, and with all the corners and short steep hills, it quickly becomes a race of attrition. It’s one of those races were every time you look back you see 4 or 5 less guys, and by the end the bunch is reduced to half. If you’re feeling strong, it’s a great race. If you’re not… jeez… it’s a rather rough day.

To help kick off this year’s edition of the Lancaster Classic, Tropical Storm Barry showed up to pretty much just stink up the joint. Never a huge threat, Barry just lingered around all day making himself more or less a rather annoying wet and windy nuisance. The kind of wet and windy, where as of today, I go to scratch my ear and pull back a finger of grit and grim. Yes, I know… very lovely. The first few laps of the race were a little nerve racking. I hadn’t been smack dab in the middle of a 120 man bunch in the slick rain in awhile. It took some time to take the edge off the nerves, dial in my rain vision, and get the feel for braking in the rain. The course has several 40 mile and hour stretches of road so getting comfortable on the wet brakes is very, very important. Cesar didn’t quite get comfortable enough as 3 times he went flying by the bunch, padded by an extra 5 miles an hour, sitting on the top tube, cleats sparking on the ground trying to stop. The Fred Flintstone breaking method is not a very effective way of stopping a bicycle. Needless to say, he unfortunately retired early with a mechanical.

As for the rest of the race, Trent “The Man They Call Willo” Wilson made the decisive winning break with 4 laps to go. Surrounded by enough strength to choke a medium sized donkey, the small group quickly began to ride away. Shortly there after, a few other riders bridged across and the group was nine strong and heading off to race the final. In the end, Willo hit out with several aggressive moves to finish up with a fine 6^th place finish. Trent has wonderful form at the moment and it couldn’t come at a better time in the season with 2 more very big races coming up this week. As for the rest of the team, at the finish we ended up having 4 riders in what was left of the slimmed down main bunch. All in all, it was a good showing for the team and a great way to kick off the week of racing.

Well folks, that’s all the news I’ve got for the current moment. I think I’d better head upstairs now and clean my ears out once and for all. Thanks for reading.

Austin King

WWW.AKINGSLIFE.COM …… Giving Freckled Kids Hope Since1981.

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