Well, it's February 20th already and that means it's time for me to get some racing done. The race at Donaldson center is the first road race I've done in two years! The weather has left my training a little on the soft side so I went in with a pretty open mind, not expecting anything great. During the drive down and while warming up I had both Chris' giving me advice on how to race and where to attack and all that cool stuff. Telling me to sit in and that if my nose see's any wind in the first hour, I'm doing too much work. Well the race went off without any problems. I spent the first two laps getting used to riding with lots of people inches away from me on all sides. A few people rolled off the front and managed to get a decent gap, but since this was a 50 mile race, no one jumped at the opportunity to reel them in. With about a mile to go in the 2nd lap I moved to the front and put in a big seated effort thinking I was going to tow the entire field with me to bring back those three guys up the road. When I got within 50 meters of the three I sat up and noticed that only one rider came along. So we got to the others and we all worked together well for three laps. I was doing slightly longer pulls than everyone else because I really wanted the break to be successful. I figured it'd be better to get 5th than to run the risk of being pack fodder in a group sprint. Well somehow the peloton caught back up to us and got to within maybe 50 feet or so with about a mile to go before the start of the 6th lap. So myself and a couple other riders kept the pace high to maintain what little gap we had and on the small hill before the 1k sign I drilled it and took three guys with me. We had opened up the gap a little bit. About a mile into the 6th lap we hit the slightly steep short climb, I upped the pace on it and I heard one of the guys yell " we dropped em". So from then on, it was just myself and a Barley's rider working together. I was probably doing 60% of the work but the other rider was still strong enough to keep the pace high. We were averaging somewhere around 25 mph and had opened up a huge gap. By the time we got to the last 1k, all we could see were two chasers about 30 seconds back. I cruised to victory in my first race of the season and I really had to work for it. I got sick that night and combined with being pretty dehydrated, I was unable to race Sunday. So off to a pretty good start this year.
One week later and my sickness from last weekend really hampered my ability to get any decent training in. So I wasn't expecting much Saturday at Fork Shoals. I tried making a couple aggressive moves early on but I was a very marked man. If I made a move, there was 15 other guys right there on my wheel. So I settled in to the peloton for the next couple laps. There were tons of attacks and each one of them was met with an instant reaction from the group, everyone was really aggressive. I got tired of all the bs going on at the front and so I got to the very front on the last lap and controlled everything. Only a ffew people tried attacking and I was able to reel them in quickly with little energy wasted. I let two guys take off with about 3 miles to go and No one else went with them. On the last two little kicker climbs leading to the uphill finish I buried myself, hoping that I would really break the field up. I softened them up a little, but in the end my legs were only good enough for a top 20 or so finish in the sprint.
After a mediocre day for me Saturday, I wasn't sure what my legs were going to be good for. And after the move I pulled last weekend here I thought for sure I'd have a huge bulls eye on my back. Maybe it was the different kit or maybe most forgot me. There was a strong and steady 15mph head wind on the back stretch and finishing straight. I decided to go right from the gun and I managed to get a good 30 second gap or so with two other riders. They both dropped off pretty quickly so I was left to fight the wind by myself for the next lap and a half. There was a bad crash in the 1/2 field so there was a fire truck and ambulance blocking most of the road. They neutralized the race there and I fell back into the peloton to get a little recovery. As we came to the last section before we hit the head wind, I was upfront and three guys put in an attack. I have come to find that no one will respond to aatacks if I'm at the front. So I let them get a decent gap going into the climb and figured that I'd attack on the climb, bridge to them and we'd have a sizeable gap to work with. My legs were starting to feel pretty good, so I went all out and took one or two guys with me. We had a good gap and by the time we crested the hill, there was a group of about 10 other riders that had gapped the rest of the group.
So we had 15 strong, smart riders working perfectly. We had no problem opening up a huge lead on the rest of the group. No one sat in or tried attacking until the last 3 miles. At that point there was only three of us that continued to rotate. I ended up getting stuck out front for a good minute or so with no one pulling through. Then a rider put in an attack. I got in about 10th wheel and sat in with 1k to go. I started moving up and with about 200m to go, I let it fly. Only three riders were able to come around me, I was able to hold everyone else off for a solid 4th place. I've really been surprising myself lately as well as building a reputation for being one of the strongest most aggressive riders in the area. I can't wait to be in shape.
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