The Tour of The Battenkill

Battenkill was an exceptional race and I found it to be an awesome course. My pre race goal was to be in the lead group, aka not being able to be dropped by anyone. Started well, I was always present at the front on the climbs and gravel sections while getting shelter on the parts of lesser importance. After every climb the group broke up a bit and I alway found myself on the right end of the split. After one of the steeper hills I found myself with two riders I knew were fast from previous experiences and I thought I was in the winning break. But alas we were caught and we ballooned to about a group of 20. After a few more shelled riders and a break went, I found myself riding comfortably with about 14 riders with 2 up the road. We kept the pace high and on the final, supposedly make it or brake it hill, I surged and 3 other managed to     latch on while we dropped a large other number of riders so now four of us pounded away and I spotted the leaders who were about 100m up the road. We flew by them and they grabbed on going down the descent we were 6 and jockeying to do as minimal work began and we sat pretty much in a stand still. A heavy rider, who I am impressed with how well he did on the hills, caught us and we were now 7 with 5km to go. I looked around and thought "wow this race wasn't that hard! I feel great!" and I looked around to see if any of my compadres felt the same and to my delight only small Thomas Wrona from my 3 man escapade earlier was in my category of good feelings. I thought to myself "holy $h!t I can win this thing!" which I believed before but now it was really coming together. I stood up to look around as I lead unwillingly and noticed my legs seize up. I have had cramps before but never like this, I probably didn't have enough electrolytes, I was too hot and couldn't remove my undershirt and had  a little to much pressure in my tires on this bumpy course. All these together made for a sprint killing cramp. I managed to pull of 6th out of our group and was a sad sight to see everyone exhausted while I felt fine just couldn't stand due to my pulsating legs. I have since worked out the problems with magnesium vitamins, adding salt to beverages as well as better planned tire pressure. At least I was the best Canadian!  Now I can use what I learned to avoid this problem and come back for the coveted Battenkill chocolate milk next year!



I am the second guy in the group.