Sunday, August 31, 2008

Chris Kerr Road Race - Jordan turns his 4000th mile

Jordan stayed with the main field until he spun out his junior gears in the tailwind section. He finished with a small group just after the main pack, and won the younger juniors division. He turned 4000 miles for the year during the race.

A field of 77 riders enjoyed the Chris Kerr Memorial Road Race this year under sunny skies, with a brisk south wind. Matt Williams, riding for Grandstay Hotel Cycling team, was the race winner. Williams took a narrow victory, as the front of the main peloton caught a solo breakaway rider Jim Moore, of Brones Bike Shop, just before the finish line.

The race started out fast, but settled down on the turn into the wind. Mark Brone attacked early, and got a gap. He was joined soon after by Ken Statz. The field was content to let the pair dangle off the front, with a gap of around 30 seconds.

About 10 miles before the finish, Statz came back, and Jim Moore quickly bridged up to his teammate Brone. Shortly after, Matt Muyers joined them. This all happened on a stair stepping uphill grade. Moore ended up dropping Brone and Muyers, and was solo, similar to 2 weeks ago in Mauston.

Moore's gap was tenuous, but the field was tentative to close it down, even in the tailwind downhill section. Spring Street Sports was doing a lot of work on the front, and with 1K to go, Moore still had around 10 seconds.

Spring Street's Dan Borgenheimer amped up the pace from the final turn, but then backed off with about 500m to go. I was 5th in line, on Dave Metza's wheel. Metza hesitated, and I knew someone had to go now to catch Moore. I jumped and held it until about 50m from the line, and Williams was just able to get over the top of Moore. Congrats to Matt Williams on an excellent win, and huge tough guy points to Moore for almost pulling off another solo break.