This weekend was a pretty solid weekend for racing. Both courses were slightly altered from previous years and any change that occurs at Hugo to mix it up is more than fine by me. The City Park course was lengthened a big which made it more interesting and kept us from getting dizzy from going around round abouts every 20 seconds.
I carpooled out to Hugo with Tim "Favre" and Pinkerton to save on gas and for the camaraderie. Stuffing only three bikes and eight wheels into the car was a breeze after last weekend's bicycle/space management practice. All loaded up and full caffeinated, we hit the road. As predicted, the further east we got, the more the wind started to pick up. It wasn't a howling wind, but it would be enough to make positioning in the pack very important for the race.
I wanted to make sure that I stayed as far towards the front as possible, while staying out of the wind so after we rolled out of town towards nothingness I moved up to about top 15 or so and readied myself to follow early surges that looked like they had a good mix of riders. There were a few attacks put in early that the group brought right back together, but by about mile five (of 78) the elastic snapped, resulting in a group of 13 of us dangling off the front. It seemed like the gap held steady at just over a minute forever, but we were working smoothly in our group and the chase lost some of its organization.
Phase one of the move had all the usual suspects, Nicol, Tarkington, Baker, Pinkerton, Reichardt, Pearce, Porter, Hamity . . . take note of the fact that four names in that list ride for Vitamin Cottage. On one of the larger rollers on our southward journey, Colby Pearce put in an effort that shed a couple riders from our group. I was lucky enough to be sitting on his wheel when he accelerated, but I certainly felt it.
Shortly after the first feed zone, Dan Porter decided it was time to start shaking more riders loose because he didn't like the numbers VC had. His subsequent efforts cut our group down to eight riders and at one point, we were split four and four with me, Kevin, Colby, and Dan free of any VC riders. That shuffle didn't last too long, they got back on and put Pinkerton at the back, not working at all. We continued rolling pretty smoothly on the east-bound leg of the course until about 1k from the turn heading back to the finish. Porter put in yet another huge effort (our guess was 800 watts sustained for 30 seconds) that dumped Baker, Tarkington, and Ross Berger. I rode myself cross-eyed on that one to stay in contact.
At the last feed zone, about 18 miles from the finish I grabbed a Coke having been through all my gels and in need of some more quick energy. As I sat up to open the can, Colby surged hard. I had the can blow up in my hand as I popped the top, took half a sip, and tossed the can aside to get to chasing. Those guys were not going slowly and I could only manage to close the gap to about 10 meters before I gave up in favor for a steady effort in the hopes of not getting caught by Baker and the others behind me. I would have been really mad at myself if I spent all day in the break only to get popped (in part to being dumb) and slide down the results.
I went into time trial mode, trying not to think about the fact that I still had over 15 miles to the finish or the fact that my legs were starting to cramp. I was maintaining a reasonable cadence and trying to keep my speed above 28 mph. As I got closer to the finish, I started reeling in the remnants of other races and was pretty sure I was imagining things when I thought I saw colors that looked like Kevin and Pinkerton. I had maintained a 30+ second gap over Baker and caught two of the four guys up the road. They were looking as fried as I felt, having been the victims of yet another Dan Porter effort. I had a choice when I was rolling up to them, I could either maintain my speed and hope to pass with enough oomph that they wouldn't be able to jump on or I could ride in with them and hope for the best come the dead legged sprint. I went with the latter, but if I could have that one back, I would have accelerated as I past them. When we rolled up to the line, I told Pinkerton that if he pipped me at the line he wasn't getting a ride home. He took the "sprint" like a man and I edged out Kevin for 4th place. Despite a few glitches, this was one of my better races since joining the P/1/2 field.
City Park went about as expected. I'm still don't get super excited about more technical crits, but eh . . . it wasn't too bad. I put in a few efforts early to go with a few moves that got a little gap, but came back pretty quickly. About 20 minutes in, I found myself sitting on Mike Carter's wheel and I told him to go, but he didn't until a lap or so later. When he did go, I saw Tim following so I got to the front and took corners nice and gently, sitting next to Steve Forbes from Vitamin Cottage who also had a couple guys off at that point. Tim came so close to making it but dangled a bike length or so off the group for a couple laps and eventually came back. Back to work . . . unfortunately about 55 minutes in, about 15 guys decided to sit up, all in about a ten second span meaning multiple gaps to close. I managed to do so, but had nothing left after that. I finished, doing whatever necessary to do so and with all my skin. It was a pretty good race for the team, Scott was mixing it up with the best of them and Dejan lived to tell the tale of handlebars coming off in his hands at the worst possible time!
I checked out the front yard this morning, post walk with Dempsey and I have flowers blooming. Nothing as glorious as some of my neighbors' yards, but here's the first geranium.
Grow . . . grow damnit!
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