People’s Community Bank Omnium Race Report

Brian Rejack was our sole representative at the People’s Community Bank Omnium recently. Here is his race report.

Last weekend I made the trek from Nashville to east Tennessee for a weekend of racing in and around Johnson City. The events included a 31-mile road race with an 8-mile finishing climb to the TN-NC border, a 2.7-mile time trial, and the TN State Championship Criterium.

The main appeal for me going into the weekend was definitely the road race. I like to think of myself as a decent climber, so the prospect of a long, 6% climb to the finish line whetted my appetite for pain. The race started slow, with no one too eager to attack given what awaited us 20 miles up the road. What I didn’t realize until looking at the data afterwards, is that virtually all of the race was uphill. We had 4219 feet of ascent compared with a measly 341 of descent. So, yes, I got my wish for lots of climbing. In any case, the first 23 miles were pretty uneventful. Just lots of moving up to stay in good position.

When the climb started, the group finally began to break apart. I stayed with the lead group of about 15 riders for the first mile or so. But when the first attack came, I knew I didn’t have it. For whatever reason, the legs just didn’t feel great. If there were a cameraman on the back of a motorcycle nearby, I would have given the ol’ hand-under-the-chin sign for “I’m toast.” Turns out this event wasn’t being televised, so I just tried to stick to some wheels instead. Eventually I found one guy whose wheel I sucked the rest of the way up the mountain. In the last K I finally came around and pulled, since I saw a couple guys gaining on us. When we got to the line, I graciously let my climbing buddy come around me. I wasn’t about to take that spot from him after he dragged me up the mountain. I ended up with 17th, which I figured wasn’t too bad for my first Cat 4 road race. It was definitely cool to do a race with a mountaintop finish.

After taking a brief nap in my hotel room, I headed over to the time trial in the evening. There were lots of disc wheels whooshing around and aero helmets cutting through the wind. But the course profile was a little lumpy, so I figured my standard road bike wouldn’t hurt me too badly (not that I had any choice). Since I’d never done a short TT before, I didn’t really know what to expect. I figured I’d just go hard and see what would happen. So that’s what I did. I didn’t puke, so maybe I didn’t go hard enough. But my main goal was not getting passed by anyone, and I met that goal. I finished 11th, about 30 seconds back of the winner. My results were getting better…

Then there was the crit on Sunday morning—the TN State Championship Crit no less. I had no aspirations of taking the jersey, but figured I’d see how I stacked up against the real sprinters. As soon as I saw James Delong from Krystal, I pretty much knew he’d be taking the jersey. That guy can sprint.

The course was supposed to have a technical sequence with 3 quick turns, but because people had parked on the course overnight, things had to be re-routed. As a result we basically got a rectangle-shaped course, which made for some fast racing (25.3 avg). My plan was just to sit in near the front and hope for the best. Early on in the race, I thought to myself, “we are gonna have a nasty wreck at some point.” We were going through corners 4 or 5 wide for much of the race, and there were quite a few sketchy moments. Every time I passed the corner with hay bales, I could smell the ensuing crash. But somehow everyone managed to stay upright. I was definitely glad we didn’t have to navigate that technical section.

There weren’t too many attacks throughout the race, so by the end we had a pretty good sized group still intact. I stayed in good position the last couple laps, and on the final one I was placed perfectly to get on the Krystal train, which was set up nicely for race favorite James Delong. I got on his wheel going into the penultimate turn and was feeling good about my chances at a decent finish. Then he took off coming out of that turn, and I wasn’t ready for it. I lost a couple spaces before the last turn, and so had to try making up some ground with my sprint. I did so and moved from about 8th to 5th,just barely missing getting 4th. But I was happy with the finish, and suddenly I was 20 bucks richer! James Delong proved my prediction right by annihilating the field in the final sprint. No one was even close. He deserves that jersey.

So I went into the weekend thinking I’d have my best result in the road race, and instead it was my worst! My crit result got me excited for the NashvilleCyclist.com crit series, which continues this week. Look for a strong contingent from Harpeth!