As I was signing up for the race a little kid came up to me and saw the stars and bars on my shoulder and said "hey you won last week, how did that feel?" I was taken by the fact that he remembered me and what I did. It reminded me of when I was swimming and the meet in British Columbia where a local kid asked me for my autograph. That was the one time I signed an autograph in swimming. Today, I didn't sign any autographs but I felt really good about myself and my team.
My field of 35+ riders started out slow, especially compared to what we had been doing the previous weeks. I'm not going to complain because I was not feeling it early on. I tried to hold back my urge to jump the field early and did a good job until 23 to go. We slowed to a snails pace and I jumped just for the sake of jumping. I got clear and was solo up the road. After half a lap I looked back hoping to see someone or anyone coming across the gap to me but I was definitely alone.
I rode solo by myself for two laps before the field caught me. I was holding between 300-350 watts during that time just trying to stay smooth and praying that maybe the field would lose interest in a solo rider. That was not to be today. I'm not going to lie, when I got caught I was definitely down a few matches. I let the second and third sprint points go by. I tried to contest the 3rd one but found myself woefully out matched by someone who outweighed me and had a better lead out train than I.
After the 3rd sprint point a GP Velo Tek rider rolled off the front. I rolled with him. He didn't get very far before two guys from Bike Shack rolled even faster off the front. Bike Shack again had numbers in the field, I'd say a good 7 or so of our 35. I was a little gassed but I said to myself, "oh heck why not." I grabbed onto their wheel and let them pull me around the course for a lap and a half. With 14 to go I looked back and found that we had been joined by 4 others and had a bit of a gap. The 4 other guys started working and I joined in.
Our gap slowly increased to about 40 seconds and as all the major teams were represented it looked like it was going to stick. In fact it did stick and thus ended my drought of not being in a winning breakaway in a crit. With 5 laps to go one of the Bike Shack riders jumped the field. I was afraid that this would happen and the cohesiveness of the break would fall apart and we'd be caught. I covered the jump and brought the break back together.
Another lap went by and I took my turn at the front. As I rolled off the front Bike Shack attacked again. The number two man in the pace line did not cover and he got clean. We were never able to pull him back because no one wanted to work for it. The gamesmanship started to get bad with 2 to go. Everyone was looking at everyone else and the field was gaining on us. I went to the front and tried to jump off but got pulled back. I was countered and held on. With 1 to go I tried to take a flyer but got reeled back and sat on the front until the just before the second-to-last corner.
I have been having wicked trouble negotiating the final corner all day. I've ridden that corner maybe 70 times in last 3 weeks but I just cannot figure it out. It's off-camber slightly less than 90 degrees and with a little bit of a hook just past the apex. I ran the wrong line again and ended up being gaped. So my good position was blown and I had to open up my sprint too early. I wasn't able to pass anyone and got passed. I rolled in 7th in the sprint. A solid race and a good springboard into the MABRA season.
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