Jeff Cup

It's an amazing thing to be a part of a field that shrinks from 125 guys to about 30 guys over the course of 70 miles. This was my first run at the Jefferson Cup in Charlottesville. In the past, I've either been in trial or afflicted with a vicious disease of some kind; as such everything was new to me. The course is a fairly typical Mid-Atlantic bike race and the field was full of all the usual team kits. A couple of hills and some fast twisting roads were the major challenges. The wind also tossed in a challenge or two.

I found myself kind of light-headed on the first two laps. I really don't know what was going on with me but I plowed on and into the third lap when things got nasty. Going up the steepest and longest of the hills that day someone set a hard pace. I was riding about 30 guys back at the time so I couldn't see what was going on but I could feel my legs slowly coming a part. We crested the hill and right into the headwind. I plunged down the steep twisting descents determined not to lose grip on the field. To be honest that grip was tenuous at that point and I was well above my lactate threshold praying for the speed to let up just a bit.

After about 10 minutes of chest-on-to-top-tube riding the pace slowed enough to catch my breath. At that point in time any light-headedness I was having was gone. I had made the split and the field had shrunk to less than 50 guys. I finished out the 3rd lap in relative peace. A teammate rode up to me at that point and asked me to shadow him and make sure he kept contact with the field. He's a much better sprinter and given the conditions of the day it was likely that the race would come down to a field sprint; so the answer to the question was pretty simple. Implementation proved fatal to my bike racing on the day.

I couldn't get him forward into the field and spent a couple of hard minutes keeping him in contact. A slip up in the feed zone on lap 5 proved to be the undoing of a bunch of people. Someone at the front put the pace down right then. I found him and put him on my wheel. He was solidly attached to my wheel as we went up a several mile long false flat which proceeded the biggest of the hills. We turned the corner and I made it my mission to make sure he got up and over the crest. When he did, I popped...hard. After trying to fight into the head wind for a mile or two I sat up and rode in.

I'm a little disappointed in how I fared. I had a lot of momentum coming into the race and wanted to keep it going. Plus, I was inspired by the idea of finally having teammates in the field. It's a good feeling not being the only guy wearing the stars and bars. However, given that I survived longer than a lot of people who last year beat me senseless a couple weekends a month, including some pro riders, I feel good. Had I not have been in the role of helping a teammate I may have survived but I was cashed and would have been of little use in the field sprint that ended the race. Another teammate, Jeff Dickey, had a solid performance and an 8th place finish to lead our squad. Greg Faber also had a great race and out lived the madness.