I knew before the start of this one that my legs didn't have a solo breakaway or even a two up breakaway in them--esp. in light of the competition. But I figured they were good enough to do some damage anyways.

This was a course fairly well suited to my strengths. The start/finish line was on top of a hill and at the beginning/end of a quarter mile offshoot of the main course loop. The hill was pretty long and steep. The main loop was eight miles long and wound along a scenic creekbed till about four miles when the big mile long staircase climb started. At the top of that big climb there was about a mile of smaller ups and downs before the road plummeted straight down and the rest of the main lap was flat to slightly downhill. We were slated to do six laps.


I was a bit nervous about riding in the big peloton winding along the creek. The road was somewhat narrow and I found myself riding awfully close to the creek side shoulder. At one point I hit a patch of sand in the shoulder and it took a moment of heart pumping handling to keep my rubber side down. Felt like 'cross by surprise. I gradually worked my way near to the front and on the climb, I reached the front rather easily. I did this mostly because I didn't want to descend at 60 mph with folks all around me.

And that was how things went for the first four laps or so. I would conservatively pass a lot of guys going up the big climb, descend in the front, then drift to the back on the flat sections. That's generally backwards from what most people try to do in a race, but it just naturally happens for me.

On the fifth lap, things got a bit more interesting. After we crested the climb, there was a small gap of about five riders. It wasn't really a breakaway yet, but after the descent, we formed up and briefly tried our hand at it. The organization was pretty poor--as it always seems to be and we were swallowed up after a short time in the open. Curtis of Snow Valley gave it a few more tries but he mostly served to bump up the pace for the final lap.

By the final lap, that staircase climb was hurting pretty good. And unfortunately for me, I wasn't near enough to the front to climb past. Instead, I had too many people crowding the road and I had to almost do a trackstand on the hill as the pace dropped. Eventually I was able to get around some and wasn't too far from the front. I was positioned well enough with about two miles to go.

Just before the climb back to the finish, Pete Whitlock of Siegler Imports attacked and I went after him. I know he's a strong rider and I was hoping to catch his draft up the hill. Unfortunately, I did a fine job of pulling the field with me since I attacked from around second wheel and when the climb started, riders where everywhere.

Boy did that climb kill. It was brutal on my tired legs and even though I was climbing pretty well, I was getting passed by ten or fifteen guys. My impression going down that hill at the start had been that the start/finish line was not far after the crest of the hill. But apparently my recollection was bad because after we crested the hill, the line was nowhere in sight. Not only that, but the guys who passed me had a gap that I wasn't going to be able to close. I outsprinted the few remainders that were around me at the finish, but by the time we got to the line none of us were sprinting all that fast.


I finished in 19th place, earing two points towards the GC. That would be my best finish of the weekend. I'm not sure with the legs I had whether I could have done anything differently. I guess I would have like to try a major attack on the final climb, but I'm not sure I could have made it stick with such a quality field in tow.