Barry-Roubaix 2015 Race


It was COLD!

The starting temperature of Barry-Roubaix was roughly 20 degrees and that may be generous. I raced the 36-mile Fixed Gear again, same as last, however unlike last year they bundled us with the SS'ers which means we had to race them for podium position. Ouch. There were 40 in that category and we went off in wave 4 at roughly 10:06, sent off waves ever two minutes with the two big 62-mile groups going off first and second.

As usual it was a pretty fast start and trying to keep up with SS'ers that can coast on the descents, and pick up speed, is not an easy task on a fixed gear bike. The course was in awesome shape! No ice and no snow to speak of, so of course at such low temperatures everything was frozen. At the start you hit the three sisters within 1.5 miles and once you clear those you are pretty much warmed up, well ... as warm as you are going to get. They put Sager road back into the course this year and honestly that was the most fun road of the race. When I hit it I had to thread the needle through two lines of gearing racers going up either side of the road, so I shot up the center passing everyone in front of me on that road. Good times!

I passed lots of SS'ers and took notice of no other fixed gear guys (Dave Jolin was the only other fixed gear guy that I knew of and we did not see any other fixed gear guys at the start). 

In the end I placed 8th out of the 40 in that category, so I think I did well against all of the SS'ers and I was 2.5 minutes off from being on the top five podium. Dang! I wanted under 2 hours but alas missed it by one second, 2:00:01. DOH!
Location: Hastings, MI 49058, USA

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