Another Race Report From Le Tour de Mont Pleasant

Tour de Mount Pleasant...  CAT 5 Men's Road Race  Sunday June 14th.

Beautiful conditions... 65-70F, sunny with about a 10 knot breeze out of the south west...

The CAT 5 Men's field was full... 50 spots pre-registered with 8 wait-listed riders allowed to join the pack for a total of 58.  The race started at 10:30 with 2 West Priority Health riders (Bill Braun, Drew Martin) and a couple friends from Kalamazoo Bicycle Club (Jon Ballema, Pete Post) and Team Active (Joe Kucharski).  The peleton set off at a brisk pace and quickly shed some 10-15 riders with a front pack of at least 30-40.  There were several faint-hearted attempts at breakaways, but the group was riding fast enough to keep the breakaways in check... average speed for the full 33 miles was 24.6mph.

The first real excitement in the ride came at about mile 15 when one rider in the front quarter of the pack was squeezed off the road and onto the gravel shoulder... he then took a very short tour of a shallow drainaige ditch and a bit of front yard.  Without losing much speed, the rider was able to come back across the ditch and carefully rejoin the peleton.

About about a mile out from the finish on the second-last leg (a south leg), there were two CAT 4 men riders down on the race course with race coordinators attending to them.  The course necked-down to 1 lane through the accident area, and the CAT 5 peleton slowed nicely to work its way through the tight spot.  The lead riders chose to break as they worked through the accident area.  The rest of the peleton was on them quickly, and some 30-40 riders finished within seconds of each other.  Martin and Braun finished near the middle of the pack with 23 and 27 respectively.  Overall 44 riders finished the race with 14 DNFs.

Mount Pleasant deserves compliments for a wonderfully run race!