I went out to the course at 7am to sweep corners, by 10 was in the Masters 40+ wheel car (i.e. my truck), 1:58 threw my clothes on in a panic as my race staged and 2:08 rolled out. 5 laps of ~22k.
What a race. Wind, rollers, enough that when people rode fast, everybody suffered. At the end of lap 4 of 5, hitting the gravel stretch for the second to last time, we took it at some decent speed and strung things out. Then the last climb up the hill immediately after for the start of lap 5 just detonated the field. By detonated, I mean destroyed, shattered, split, tore up, shredded. We had lost maybe 10 guys prior to that. I made a selection of 4 over the top of the hill. 2 more joined up right away and by the time we were 2 miles off the top of the hill we had a huge gap to the next little group. And I would guess the second group had a good gap to the third, etc. With 15k to go there was just no-one in sight behind. 2 therapeutics and 2 fred meyer, me, and one gentle lover. I tried taking short and easier pulls, hoping the legs wouldn't be totally fried when we got to the line. Therapeutic and FM each had one guy sitting on, so I figured I had to keep working and keep the pace up a little bit otherwise they were going to start attacking and counter attacking, and I would get screwed by having to try and follow all the moves. So I pulled, but not too much. Less than 1k out from the gravel I made a move that took Carson Miller with me and the others kind of looked at each other. We opened the gap, I got on his wheel, came around too early and really sucked at the sprint. He took it back. I was hurting. He did a great ride. I didn't expect to win the sprint but had to give it a go. It was close enough we both threw our bikes at the line. Altho it was more of a tired heave-ho than a real throw... .
See the duo on the dirt, here and more here
Good times. I can't wait for next year.
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