I hadn’t planned on racing Sunday, but since I won on Sat, I felt obligated to show up and try to defend my lead in the omnium. There were a lot fewer people in this race (about 38), so I knew who I needed to watch. The course featured two hills - a long, steep, 39x27 hill (2-3 minutes), and a shorter, rolling 39x25 near the end. Not enough to really split the field, but by the end, we were down to 20 of the 38. I was feeling pretty tired during this race (not having ridden much for the last couple weeks), but AJ was fantastic in chasing people down.
Last couple laps, I led the field up the major climbs as a way to stay near the front, and was feeling okay (but not great). AJ was around to lead me through the field, and lead out the sprint, which meant that I was actually in a good position for once.
I knew the Lenovo guy I was watching for the omnium was stronger than me, so in the sprint, I watched him closely. Unfortunately, I tried to come around him in the sprint on the right, where there were inexplicably a couple of women’s riders. I don’t know if we were just passing their field, or if they happened to finish at the same time somehow, or what, but in either event I almost ran one of them off the road, and had to sit up and try to sprint again. It was my fault, I should’ve been looking further up the road, but they were going so much slower that it all happened very quickly. Managed to stay upright, managed to start sprinting again, and ended up 6th. I was a bit peeved, since the finish suited me so well (I love uphill sprints), but it was enough to take the omnium for the weekend.
Big thanks to AJ and Smoothie for showing up on Sun and sacrificing for me to take the omnium - it was actually sort of important to me, and I’m thrilled it worked out.
Anyone know where there are pictures? Never did find any for either day.
Glenwood Road Race
This was my first real race since Leah was born, and my goal on the line was just to finish. On a wet and rainy day, with 80+ in the field, I figured I’d be stuck in the back with no hopes of moving up (I really need to work on my pack positioning skills). Fortunately, I was able to line up at the front of the race, and once we got rolling, I managed to stay in the front 15 for the first lap, covering some attacks and blocking for a few of ours that got a bit up the road. I was feeling generally good, even though it was raining, and started to feel comfortable at the front again. Of course, I got shuffled to the back for laps 2 thru 4, and had great deal of trouble moving up. I started to feel nervous racing again (lots of brake-fistfuls on some of the mini-descents), and was just hoping to make it through the race without touching wheels. Brian got shuffled to the back when he missed a turn (thanks corner marshals!), and started ranting excitedly about how we need to be at the front. Weirdly, this is what I needed to hear to make moving up through the field sound like something I actually wanted to do. I made it about 1/2 way up, when I got stuck again. Fortunately, Randy launched an attack and the field stretched out just enough for me to move all the way to the front.
Since there were only about 6 miles left to go, and Randy’s attack had come back, I went to the front to try to string it out for AJ in the finale. I pulled hard by myself on the front of the field for about 2 miles, and then we went around a left hand turn up a small riser (53x23), and I ended up pulling away from the field a bit. A Starbucks guy came with me, and I decided to just keep pulling for a bit to make some other teams chase. We only had about 5-10 seconds, then all of a sudden the elastic snapped, and we had about 400 yards. We were sharing pulls evenly, and I was doing my best not to get over-excited, since the finish suited me precisely (200m uphill drag). With 1K to go, I knew Recycled had it locked, and sure enough, on the finishing straight, I was able to knock it out by a comfortable margin. I was really thrilled to be in a break this way, in such a big race - Wes (from Starbucks) and I took pretty even pulls, and really cooperated all the way to the line. It was great to have such positive racing, and I think Wes and I were both thrilled that something stayed away.
It was great for the team to get our first USCF win in the Cat 3 field this year in an important race. It was great for my form to finally start coming around (along with my confidence racing/positioning, etc). I’ve felt reasonably strong all year, but I haven’t been able to put myself near the front of races where it would really make a difference. It worked out this time though, and all the Recycled guys really controlled the race for the first 5 laps. It’s great to ride with a fantastic team - we had lots of ways to win, and it felt like we were in the hunt all day.
Since there were only about 6 miles left to go, and Randy’s attack had come back, I went to the front to try to string it out for AJ in the finale. I pulled hard by myself on the front of the field for about 2 miles, and then we went around a left hand turn up a small riser (53x23), and I ended up pulling away from the field a bit. A Starbucks guy came with me, and I decided to just keep pulling for a bit to make some other teams chase. We only had about 5-10 seconds, then all of a sudden the elastic snapped, and we had about 400 yards. We were sharing pulls evenly, and I was doing my best not to get over-excited, since the finish suited me precisely (200m uphill drag). With 1K to go, I knew Recycled had it locked, and sure enough, on the finishing straight, I was able to knock it out by a comfortable margin. I was really thrilled to be in a break this way, in such a big race - Wes (from Starbucks) and I took pretty even pulls, and really cooperated all the way to the line. It was great to have such positive racing, and I think Wes and I were both thrilled that something stayed away.
It was great for the team to get our first USCF win in the Cat 3 field this year in an important race. It was great for my form to finally start coming around (along with my confidence racing/positioning, etc). I’ve felt reasonably strong all year, but I haven’t been able to put myself near the front of races where it would really make a difference. It worked out this time though, and all the Recycled guys really controlled the race for the first 5 laps. It’s great to ride with a fantastic team - we had lots of ways to win, and it felt like we were in the hunt all day.
