The SG Ride... Fighting the Gravel Road Race Trend for 15+Years....
Rain didn't keep about 21 riders from showing up to the SG ride this week. Pretty awesome! The ride started out a little more calm than usual, probably due to the wet conditions. The first several miles (up to the light on 68\70) Everyone stayed together. Nobody appeared willing to make
any attacks or able to hold off anything for longer than a minute. The
rain reduced visibility and kept a few guys on edge. Was definitely a night that tested the ballsy factor of the riders involved. Once the ride crossed in to Southington, conditions improved greatly. A few hard efforts at the front from the riders you'd expect, but it was
basically gruppo compacto up until the turnaround on West.
At
that point, a select group of riders - Chris C, Nuemotion, Ben Bruce, and a few others (maybe 8-10 in total) got a small gap. Kyle Crowell and Keith M, and Duncan C ot stuck between the lead group and the remaining riders. Up front it was all Nuemotion, grabbing the sprint ahead of 2 or 3 others. Behind, some hard pulls got the chase within reach by the time the ride crossed over I84. Gruppo compacto for most of the
ride until everyone got onto route 10. There were some short-lived gaps but nothing that stuck for more than 1 minute or 2.
Once the ride hit the "steps" on route 10 the pressure went up a bit. Burgster put in an attack and quickly pulled off 30-50 meters. A couple of other riders joined up and that trio was on its way to grabbing the Stop n Shop sprint. It would end up goign to Ben Bruce, although a rocketing Kyle C nearly took it at the line. Burg tried to keep up a gap thru Cheshire but it was to no avail. Again he went hard on the run-in back into Cheshire but was reeled back in quickly. Visibility was low for the finale.... Someone with knowledge of such things will have to chime in on the Sit n Sprint finish.
