Soens and So Forth

Saturday was the official kickoff of the British cycling season, the Eddie Soens Memorial Race. British Cycling did a pretty damn good job of covering the race and they have a solid report complete with video on their website. If you want the official version head there. But since you're reading this I have a sneaking suspicion you might want my opinion on the days happenings. So here you go. (Also, there are some really good photos here.)

Here's Pete getting the rigs race ready. Hmmm... alliteration!The race was crazy. That seems to be a common theme with racing in Europe so far. But while the Zwolle was crazy because people were fast and the roads were narrow and challenging, the Soens was crazy because we raced with women and juniors on a wide open course with no real turns or selective features. To hijack a quote from Forest Gump, European bike racing is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get, but it's probably going to be nutty.

The race takes place on the closed circuit pictured above. This could be a pretty interesting course if it was about 800 meters long, but each lap is 1.66 miles of wide open roads. This, combined with a lack of elevation change, wind or inclement weather made this about the least selective course I've ever ridden. We were rolling around at almost 30mph and you could pretty much coast in the pack.

To spice things up and give everyone an equal shot at glory they run this race as a handicap. They break all starters into 3 groups with women, juniors and lower categories in the first group, then middle category riders, then 1,2 and Elite riders. They started group one, then group 2 after 30 seconds, then us at a 1:30. Last year the juniors caught the third group by slaying it for the first few laps and as a result the fastest riders were sprinting for 30th. Not this year.

The Raleigh boys jumped on the front from the gun and didn't stop rolling until we'd swept up all the groups on the road. This made for a very exciting 150 man, nay, person group swerving around an open track like so many drunk drivers who've tried to compensate for their inebriation by drinking a whole pot of coffee. Twitchy and reckless is a hell of a combination. I mean, picture taking your local crit and running all the categories together and that's the Soens.
Despite the supremely negative conditions our guys did everything they could to snap off a break. I saw absolutely every one of our guys rip off at least one attack and most people were out there hitting it time after time after lung-busting time. We rolled that shit for 25 laps until a move finally went. It's a testament to the strength of the team that we could make a move stick on a course with those conditions.

And stick a move we did. Cronshaw and Liam managed to finally get a gap with 8 other guys. We dropped the ball by letting a lone chaser get away, and then Kippo showed his killer instinct and hopped right on the Tennant train for a free ride across. 3 out of 11. Not bad. As it got down to the closing laps Cronshaw knew the time was ripe for a glory gamble and lit out solo in search of the line.

Alas, tragedy befell him. He got swallowed up by the break less than 50 meters from the line. Kippo had the balls to throw down a nasty sprint and snagged a very respectable podium spot.
And what of your humble narrator? I mixed it up with a tad bit of attacking and then tried to rally a little sprint, but there's not much glory in sprinting for 12th place, and even less in getting crashed out while doing it. I pulled up early and called it a day.

But there is a silver lining. Even though I only rolled in for 18th place, it was actually quite an impressive result. You see, Magnus Backstedt has come out of retirement and he was racing the Eddie Soens. And I beat him. Now, if you know anything about math or logic then you've probably heard of transitivity. It usually runs something like this: if a > b and b > c then a > c. Now let me introduce to you the Transitive Property of Race Results (TPR²): If Magnus > Paris-Roubaix and Ryan Parnes > Magnus then Ryan Parnes > Paris-Roubaix. AMAZING!! It turns out the Eddie Soens was one of the most pivotal races of my young career. However a true fan would quickly point out the fact that I showed promise of being one of Transitive Cycling's true greats as far back as the TT of the 2009 Nature Valley Grand Prix. It was in that opening time trial that I virtually won cycling's most prestigious race, the Tour de France. Floyd Landis > Le Tour and Ryan Parnes > Floyd Landis. Therefore Ryan Parnes > Le Tour. It's even more impressive because I'm clean!

Team Raleigh did two more races on Sunday with great success and I urge you to keep up with the team on facebook and to check out the pretty slick, if not always grammatically correct, website. Okay, I just can't keep it in. Rickety Cricket won the race at Pimbo and Jonesy nabbed another podium at the Severn Bridge RR. These guys are on fire!