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After a good nights sleep in an almost quaint motel room I woke up to pounding rain and clashing thunder. I think to myself, "today is going to a wonderful day for bike racing. At least it's not cold.." With that, I ate a couple PowerBars, talked some race strategy with Erick, apologized to Nicole and thanked her for doing feeds, grabbed my things, and headed out to the race. We get to registration and find the race has been postponed 30 minutes; so I headed back to the car, pulled out some biochem notes and began to study. Meanwhile, the windows began to fog. I decided to step outside and couldn't help but feel the frigid front working it's way through. It was cold. I went back up to sign in and the race has been delayed yet another 30 minutes. Back to the car and study. An hour later I suit up and head out.
RR1:
The race was cold, wet, windy and slippery. The goal was to get Erick off the front. I sat in towards the back and waited for the race to settle and for me to warm up before I started to play. People started to flat, attacks started to happen and as I moved to the front I saw good old Erick Benz make it into a break near the feed zone. I don't remember the particulars of who was in the the break with him other than that he had one San Jose (Alex Battles-Wood) rider with him. I asked Raurri, from THSJ, if this was acceptable, he verified it was and so the fun began. By this point Baker was on his first flat replacement somewhere off the back, Travis was somewhere mid pack, and our other B&S brethren were somewhere behind me.
From this point on up to the last lap I spent my time covering every last attempt to bridge up to Erick and the break. THSJ decided to let me do all the work because B&S had the most to lose, so I did. Several times I found my self on the back of many chases that wouldn't last much longer than a mile because no THSJ rider wanted to grace the group with their presence. This was the name of the game until the last lap when I followed one individual, who's name escapes me, into a sizable gap. By this point Alex had flatted out and another had drop from Erick's group. The rider I was following began to get frustrated that I wouldn't help him bridge all the up to the two man break. I thought about it for a second, looked backed, saw a huge gap (almost out of sight), realized that the break was most likely over and adding another two strong riders may help solidify it to the finish, and decided to lay it down. I told the gentleman to hang on through tailwind and crosswind and hammered it up to Benz. I had to slow down a bit as to not drop my new friend and after a couple minutes we bridged the gap. I said Hi to Benz, he looked both happy and sad. He was happy because I was there and sad because he had been riding on a flat for past few laps while wearing out his break away companion. Erick Benz is a monster. I told him to sit in so he could rest for the TT and I would try to replace his work load. The four of us work together for a bit until the other two riders ran out of steam. Benz and I worked for a bit and then we were caught...
After getting swallowed up by the pack, Benz dropped to get a flat replacement and I stayed at the front trying to keep the pace slow enough for him to catch up. Unfortunately, no one else had the same idea in mind and picked up the pace. HARD. The group shattered as Ruarri attack very hard every hill and a couple other pounded to keep Benz out of the game. However, what they didn't catch on to was that I was still there. By this point there was only about a dozen of us left all playing cat and mouse trying to either speed things up to keep the pace high or to get away. This went on to about 3k to go when somehow after I followed a couple attacks which the instigators promptly sat up I was given a 2 or 3 second gap. I thought I might ramp it up just a little bit to see how they would handle it. They let me have it. I said to myself out loud, "Idiots, there is 3k to go and this is my race on the track. See ya at the finish!" I looked back and laid it down. As my gap grew I eased up and as it shrank I sped up, all the way to the finish. I won by a few seconds (which I REALLY thought was more, but given the outcome I'm okay with that) and took the 10 second time bonus. I was in first place for GC. Travis and Mike rolled in a couple minutes behind me, and Erick about a minute after that.
As Erick rolled by (not 3 minutes after I finish) I clipped into my bike to speak with Nicole and BAM! My rear wheel locked up? What the heck? I looked down and saw my derailleur in my wheel with a variety of broken spokes. Fantastic. I got a congratulatory kiss from Nicole, grabbed my phone, and gave our very own personal bike collector, Jason Newman, a call in hopes to borrow my long time bike replacement friend, the 2005 aluminum SWORKS I had won three races on last year this time of the year... As a side note, for the past three years within a week of this time each year my bikes have in someway become unridable. Thank you Jason for letting me borrow your bike.
Time for the TT:
I had VERY high hopes for this TT because based on my 2nd placement at HCTT the weekend before I believed I could win the 2's that evening. However, as the afternoon wore on I began to get very concerned. And this is why: I was on a borrowed bike that I had only ridden 6 times along with other mechanical issues attributed with a triathlon bike who's tires are 9/10s glued on... The wind put me WAY out of my comfort zone on the TT bike and it showed in my results. I spent more energy trying to stay upright than on the pedals. I felt really let down after the race and had serious concerns on my performance with my lack of hitting the redzone which is necessary to win any effort such as this. Nonetheless, the my time was decent enough to keep me in first GC with a 7 second gap with Ruarri from THJS trailing and Jessie Moran from PACC 36 seconds or so off that.
RR2:
The goal for this race was simple: Protect me and keep all contenders together. This would be a very tough task to do as we were short on men and THJS had a full squad. Fantastic. 95 miles of hurt with plenty of opportunities to put it on me.
The race went like this: non-contender attack after attack followed by this frequent conversation with Erick.
Me: "Erick, you catch that?"
Erick, "Yep, we're good we have 6 minutes on them"
Me, "You sure?"
Erick, "Yep [double checks his top tube], Yep"
Me, "Okay..."
So we let them go to steal points from Raurri and others.
Come second lap was the hot spot. There was one rider up the road that went off for it about 2k in advance. We were happy with that. As we got the hill and I was all over Ruarri (he is good on hills, I am not), and Jesse was all over me. Raurri jumped hard but not hard enough. He looked back, saw me there, and saw the "oh crap" look on his face. I jumped him moderately hard as to save a lot for the top. I got the a large gap and saw that Jesse was struggling as we reached the flat, so I laid it down, dropped him before the line, sat up and joined the group again. A few more seconds puts me in a safer GC victory. And now the hurting began...
By this point the field was relatively large. B&S were in the pack staying out of harms way and keeping an eye out on me. Unfortunately, this is when THJS decided to throw their big guns up to the front to begin drilling and guttering through the crosswind. This was painful. Very painful. Fortunately for me both Erick and Travis were able to stick around. I needed them. On lap 4 Travis took a long pull at the front to keep the pace high and me out of the wind. This was a pleasant relief. By the time we got back to the crosswind section Travis headed back to shelter where he kept a watchful eye on me for the rest of the race. A couple times he provided me with a well need push at the peak on the hot spot hill. THJS continued their trashing and the time for Erick had come. Erick motored lap 5 in the crosswind keeping me out of harm and THJS in the gutter. This provided me with much needed relief. Lap 6 out of the feed zone Travis took a killer pull in the head wind. Brant Speed and Rurri from THJS saw this and attack hard with two others. I yelled at Travis to jump but the wind was overwhelming. Being a few guys back it took me a few seconds to push my way through the group and then pounded down everything i could to bridge. I got have way and was fried. I stayed out there maybe 30 seconds when Erick fought his way through to take a massive pull. He split the distance, I covered the rest and we were back together again. My legs were shot and we had one lap to go.
I did my best to keep my composure as not to lead on to my fatigue but I was close to done and being on a borrowed bike slightly too large for me I was concerned of mile 90 cramps. Luckily, that never happened.
By this time there was a break of four guys with two THSJ (Brant and Ruarri), three B&S (me, Travis, and Erick), about 8 others, no Jesse Moran (he flat, poor guy, I made friends with him and really wanted to see him do well). The last lap THSJ tried one last time to get rid of me. Erick jumped in front of me I did my best to stay out of the gutter (miscommunication on my part with Erick made things significantly more difficult on myself). I did and we made it back stretch where Erick kept a close eye on time, myself, and THSJ. I had a quick chat with Raurri and they were out of gas. As we approached finish the race THSJ one last ditch effort to gain time on me. They were unsuccessful.
Team Brain and Spine had won Fayetteville.
I am still tired. See ya at Fort Davis!
Herc |
