Fitchburg Longsjo Classic
With my recent injury in a crash in philly it meant that I had to leave my team mates to handle the Tour de Beauce with out me. (Not that I was needed. Scott Swiz was still able to win the over all…pretty impressive).
This also meant that I had to modify the schedule a bit and head out to the Longsjo Classic in Fitchburg (near Boston).
This is one of, if not the oldest stage race on the NRC I think. This year it was a tough set of stages but no epic climbs so good for the harder sprinters who can suffer up the poppers and rolling hills around the area. After the first stage time trial the team had 3 in the top 4. Unfortunately the one spot we didn’t have was # 1. That belonged to Tom Zirbel from Bissell.
The second stage was struck by a a storm of rain and we went on the attack. I got into the move after a hard attack near the mid way point. I worked hard to keep the move away as I was only down on Tom by 34 sec. We only managed to keep 10 of the seconds our breakaway had earned…still it put me closer. and moved me into 2nd overall.
The third stage was a longer race with 10 1.5 km climbs. A tough day that saw a break go and get brought back and then lots of attacking in the closing laps. The finish was up the hill and I hit the gas at the base…I got a gap and came in the top 5. The gap gave me another 17 or so seconds back on Tom. This meant going into the last crit.
The team let a the break put pressure on the Bissell train. We helped a bit towards the end of to bring the break back to within 20 sec. Then we started to attack. With Scott within 11 sec and me at 6 we had some tools David V launched Scott (after working a lot) and they got a gap and forced Bissell to chase them hard. Then when they where caught I countered and left the field and bridged what was left of the small gap. Once I reached the break there was only 5 laps to go and with a team mate (who was already in the break, Reid Mumford) we drag raced it to the finish and put enough time on the field for me to take the overall. It was exciting to take the lead on the final move. What a good team win…everyone produced and the result was the leaders jersey on the last day.
tommycycle on July 8th, 2009
good job Zack…what a modest writeup. I totally skipped over the fact that you won the overall until I looked up the race on cyclingnews.com.
Well Done!