The first race of the year - it always brings an entertaining mix of emotions, comments, fitness, and usually some crashes. This year was no exception and brought all the usual: riders talking about lack of training, not wanting to do too much, excitement, avoiding crashes, and the big egos that us cyclists tend to carry around like a few extra winter pounds this time of year!
GTS #1 - Donaldson RR:
Saturday was relatively uneventful for the team this year. Andrew had to work, Jacob was preoccupied, and Chris Emory was on a plane. That left the Doctor and I to take up the slack for the team, which we did by basically not doing anything and just staying in the 'safe zone' in the pack, avoiding crashes and testing our early season fitness. Due to some finishing straight shenanigans, there was a big pileup which took about Travis Fender of UNCA, but he landed on his head (no danger of hurting that) and he was acting normal (for him) after the race. Jason & I both finished mid-pack, but the upside was that it was 60, sunny, with a light breeze. We got in an hour before and about 30 minutes after for a solid day of about 3:45.
GTS #2 - Donaldson RR (again):
Sunday could've been boring (sunny, 60, light wind), but NOOO . . . it was about 45 with a steady wind of about 20mph. All I know is we were going 12mph, in a race and it wasn't easy! We had almost the full team out today, minus Jacob. Unfortunately, due to Andrew getting a flat, our number was reduced to 3. After the 1st lap the decisive move went with DLP, Global Bike, Hincapie, Time, Myogenesis, Johnny Clarke - the move of the day. We didn't have anybody up there, so Andrew (pre-flat), Jason, Emory, and myself tried to get in moves, but all were marked. With about 3 to go Chris Emory got away with one other rider and kept a gap. I was able to bridge up with 3 others to form a nice echelon of 6 strong, but we had no chance of catching the break which was 3 minutes up the road. Finally with about 500 meters to go, Chris led out the sprint until a little Canadian rider jumped with Brian Sheedy on his wheel - I hopped on, but couldn't fit between the two of them to get by Brian. I ended up 2nd in the sprint, 10th on the day (although I noticed tonight that the results don't show this!), and Jason finished up in the greatly diminished field. Only about 30 finished out of about 100? Quite a race of attrition I'd say . . .
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