Orrville Milk Race

It was nice to see some friendly faces at this morning’s Orrville Milk Race. The 8 friendly faces of my teammates who would line up with me in the Cat 4 field were; Mike Schiltz, Scott Brunner, Don Bunker, Jim Flesher, Tim House, Marshall Leininger, Erik Lesco, Carl Peshoff. I had originally sworn this race off last year when it was a combined cat 4/5 field but when I saw it was broken out into separate fields, I had to take another stab at it. Hats off to the Orrville cycling club for a well run event. Easy registration, plenty of marshals on all the road intersections, nice smooth roads and a police escort have all the makings for a good event.

Being officially on baby watch (I didn’t have my cell phone on me during the race, but I did give it to Jim’s wife Vicki) I was hoping I would make it through the race without getting ‘the call.’ This race was three laps long and the race can be described fairly generically lap by lap:

Lap 1: Fast with several attacks. Our own Jim Flesher led a move that looked good except that one of the three teams with significant numbers racing, Allied Decals wasn’t present. I didn’t think they could do it, but between their efforts and the riders off the front beginning to tire, the break was brought back right before the start/finish line. That was a bummer because I was looking to get off the front at the start line once they were back to try and grab one of the primes but with the high speed and pseudo mass confusion usually present by overtaking riders, I didn’t go for it. I was also suffering too much at this point to try and elevate the already high pace and I was just looking to conserve some energy to finish the remainder of the race. It was also at that point that I began thinking that maybe it would be nice if I did indeed get ‘the call.’ Not being waved down from Vicki, I decided to stick it out for at least one more lap.

Lap 2: Things seemed to slow down on this race as everyone was probably suffering as much as I was. I don’t remember any moves at all going on this lap until we got close to the second prime, which was won by Mike. No ‘call’ waiting for me so why not finish this thing out!

Lap 3: This lap picked up momentum once again as the official tour guide, Marshall pulled the field around the course. On the last time up the climb, a small group got off the front containing Don, Steve from Orrville and one rider I wasn’t familiar with. This turned out to be the move as Stark and Orrville became effective at shutting things down, as there were a lot of attempts at guys trying to get across the gap. It was nice to see all the teams racing strategically for a change. That’s not typically what you see in Cat 4 races which have been stereotyped as ‘sit and sprints.’ With the break safely up the road it would come down to the bunch sprint for scraps in the main field. I didn’t have great position in the field so I decided that since the payout was the same whether I placed 8th or 20th, I’d take it easy and not contest it. Better to finish with both wheels upright.

For all those wondering, I’m still waiting for ‘the call’ from my wife. I’ll keep you posted.

Here are the numbers for the day. Much tougher race than I thought while racing it. (Note, I was suffering but I thought it was just because I haven’t been able to log in quality miles.)


Duration: 1:15:36
Work: 988 kJ
TSS: 112.2 (intensity factor 0.944)
Norm Power: 283
Distance: 30.094 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 979 218 watts
Heart Rate: 50 185 164 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 96 rpm
Speed: 2.7 40.9 23.9 mph
Torque: 0 342 65 lb-in