RACE REPORT: Bristol

Courtesy of Eric Muehl:

I came into this weekend with halfway decent legs. I put in a pretty heavy workload during the week. The road race had a small field, maybe 25 guys and it was getting hotter by the minute. The first lap was nice and low key for the most part. The pace wasn't too high and people weren't chomping at the bit to launch attacks. There were a few unsuccessful moves during the first lap, but it wasn't until the last few miles of that lap that two riders slipped off the front. They had a pretty good gap going but there wasn't a hurry to reel them back in so early in the race. Then two more riders slipped away and created a decent gap quickly. A train forced the leaders to stop so we had to wait and let them regain their gap before we could continue. After that we carried on at the same pace and by about half way through the lap I took the lead to try and reel the riders up the road back in. I cut the gap by 20 seconds within a few miles and I kept riding hard to bring them in for an entire lap. A few miles after I got to the back and started recovering the course marshal came through and gave us the time splits which had jumped up to over 2 minutes. So the two groups of two became one strong group of four and they were killing it. The field started to get organized half way through the third lap and everyone was rotating and working together. Eventually people stopped working and the chase was held up again. Thomas launched a few good attacks and had some daylight for a good bit, but the field managed to chase him down. By the time we got stated on the fourth lap I was starting to feel the damage done to my legs. Someone lifted the pace through the feed zone and I had to chase for thirty seconds to catch back on. I made it up the next climb just fine, but the next climb was a little longer and a little steeper and I couldn't match the accelerations. I was left chasing on the descent and got back on before we hit the headwind section. By the time we hit the second to last tough climb we had caught one of the dropped riders from the break away and again I lost ground. I had a long downhill, slightly rolling stretch of road to catch back on. I got to within 200 meters of the group, but this was right before I hit the last of the climbs. I lost all the ground I had made up and was left chasing hard to get back however I was unable to. Luckily Thomas was able to stay in it and get 7th overall!
The day of the crit was even hotter than the day before and the race didn't start until 3. I was a bit doubtful that I would be doing anything other than hanging off the back struggling to match accelerations. For the first 15 laps that was the case, but I settled in to a rhythm and started feeling comfortable. A couple attacks early on maintained decent gaps and the last one got pulled back in with about 30 laps to go. Andrew spent most of the race marking all the attacks and keeping the field together. A couple laps later whilst coming through the last corner, a Metro rider rode right into the back of another rider and immediately started yelling at him. Everyone regrouped on the next lap and as we approached the start/finish the pace slowed. Three riders jumped off the front and I saw there was no reaction from the field so I jumped the gap to them and there was still no reaction. One rider tagged along with me so we had a strong five man group and a decent gap that was growing fast. We all kept working together and we had started lapping riders, however people stopped rotating with about 8 to go. I stayed at the front driving the pace and three riders attacked on before the third turn. I was able to stay with them, but coming into the last turn, the rider sitting third wheel slid out and disrupted the sprint a little. I probably started sprinting with 300 meters to go and I was able to hold on for third overall. I certainly wasn't expecting that to happen. Not a bad weekend for the team and I'm planning on better results at French Broad.

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ERIC MUEHL