Maple Hill RR

We had a great turnout for the club at the Maple Hill Race for Wishes with nearly 20 AAVC’ers making the trip over to Kalamazoo.    The race was held in a rural area west of the city in Lawton Township and featured four short climbs of ~8% grade with a number of rollers.  In the Cat 4 race Tyler Trask and Harvey Elliott set out to punish the competition

Harvey Elliott sitting in at 4th wheel

from the start and set the pace for much of their four laps.  Of the 75+ riders who started the race, only 42 finished and of those only ~15 were there for the sprint.  For his part, Tyler really dished out the pain, but unfortunately crashed out with less than 2 miles to go.  Harvey was able

AAVC'ers setting the pace in the Cat 4 race

to dive out of the lane to avoid the pile up, but didn’t have any more go for the finish and rolled in with the lead pack at 11^th.  Fred Feng finished 33^rd and Rob Shoemaker was just behind him at 35^th. Rob had a short breakaway in the 3^rd lap, but these guys ended up solo for much of the 4^th lap when things got really hairy.  In the Cat 4 Womens race, Andrea Merlotti shined as a climber staying near the front the whole race and winning the group sprint to the finish.  With that performance she secured a new State Champion jersey and proved that she needs to upgrade!  While I can’t say much for the other races, I can report places. 

Cat 1/2: Rob Ehrman took an impressive 4^th place

Masters 35+: Colin Hebert finished 11^th and Lucas Wall 18^th

Master 45+: David Fanslow 15^th, Winston Benedict 21^st, Kurt Schaldenbrand 36^th

Cat 3: Danny Soltan 14^th

Cat 4: Harvey Elliott 11^th, Fred Feng 33^rd, Rob Shoemaker 35^th, Tyler Trask DNF

Cat 5: Ben Rothacker 8^th and Michael Kines 14^th

Cat 5 35+: Rob Grainger 4^th and Matt Raezler 19^th

Juniors: Vincent Vermeulen 4^th

Womens Cat 4: Andrea Merlotti 1^st