ESG Qualifiers at Bristol

Rob’s Report of ESG Qualifiers at Bristol

The first part of the ESG qualifier was the race of truth, the time trial. It’s just you, the bike & the clock. Well maybe the wind to. We all thought that we’d have a nice tailwind for the point-to-point 7-mile trek down Rt. 64. Well, not so fast….the winds were swirling in the valley, so most reported a headwind at times & tail at others, making it a challenging TT effort, not to mention the ¾ mile climb at the end. I felt pretty good for the 2nd time on the TT bike this year & ended up 13th quick.

The 60-mile road race started with Duncan Douglas firing off the front (in his customary way) right out of the parking lot! The group was not interesting in chasing & no one wanted to endure a 60-mile break effort, so Duncan was soon out of sight and on his way to a solo win by nearly 5 minutes. The peleton held a pretty casual pace the first lap, with the Shikluna squad controlling the pace. The pace started ratcheting up as we hit the 2 laps to go mark, and by the time we hit the Egypt climb the race was on. Dan Staffo (Handlebars) was punching up Egypt pretty hard & the field started the come apart. I felt good sitting in the field with teammate Taylor Hogan (JW Dundee’s) right next to me as we ground our way up the 2nd time. Staffo and Al Lombard attacked on Rt. 64 & were off. Still no chase? Shikluna was riding defensive since one of their riders was struggling. So, with Taylor’s encouragement I attacked coming up to the 1 lap to go point and had Jeff Zygo & Justin Jones join me. They were so amp’d to be on the break, they blitzed the finish hill and dropped me, so I returned to the peleton to regroup. Soon Richard Strasser (Shikluna) and Gary Egan (Full Moon Vista) attacked & I went with them. We built a good gap, but the field tracked us down after the final time up Egypt. Jay Joslyn (Shikluna) immediately countered when the group caught us. I saw him coming, grabbed two gears & punched it to get on his wheel, knowing this was the move to get on. We quickly built a big gap & felt we were home free. As, we started catching Zygo & Jones, Jay had the cross hairs on them & he was shredding me just staying on his wheel. My legs were cramping all the way down 64, so I wasn’t much help in the chase. We caught the pair in the final corner going to the finish. Jay accelerated to go away solo for 4th. I worked with Zygo and Jones to the finish climb and punched it home to take 5th and 8th overall in points for the day.

The Top 10 men and Top 3 women in points are eligible to represent WNY at Empire State Games: Men - Jay Joslyn, Al Lombard, Duncan Douglas, Dan Staffo, John Roden, Hans Strasser, Eric Grimm, Rob Dietrick, Justin Jones, Gary Egan.
Women – Cindy Dunn, Kerry Traynor, Laura Igoe

Rob Dietrick – 6/12/06