Behind the times

I've been busy. Hate to be neglecting the blog since I think this is the longest I have ever kept it. We'll go thru a quick recap of some recent races.

Poolesville- DNF
Break goes off the gun. I wait a few miles and am bridging in a small group. Course marshalls led us the wrong direction and realized it 2min later when we came to a dead end. Would happen that no one in the break had ridden the course before.

Leonardtown-
Feeling decidedly better after a great night out in D.C with the team and the gf's family. That and the fact that we survived the drive to Leonardtown in Hurricane like weather.

Onto the race. This was a pretty big race for the team with the MABRA crit championship on the line. Pretty hard course with a decreasing radius uphill turn and a surprising heat wave. Out goal was to make the race hard and hopefully try to force a breakaway, with myself being the final leadout for Tim Brown if it came down to a pack sprint. Brown and I rolled the last few turns before the race a couple of times to decide exactly how we would play the finish.

It ended up being a very hard race. Harley was on/off the front all day. I almost stacked it once when a rider crashed right in front of me in a turn and I locked it up only to miss his head by inches. I couldn't believe that the race was going to come down to a field sprint.

With a few laps to go, Mason got into a 3 man break, and we were able to play off other teams for the finish rather that having to take control. Coming into the last lap, Russ hit the front and a few Kelly riders came over the top of me before turn 1. It's times like these that you have to stay calm, and I was hoping that Brown would trust me to put him where he needed to be when he needed to be and not panic. Sure enough, with 500meters to go, the course drifted right and I hit it hard on the inside with Tim on my wheel, coming over the top of the Kelly riders about 5mph faster. We managed to catch the remanants of Mason's break with about 300m to go. We had a big gap coming into the second to last turn and Tim hit it right before the last turn as planned taking the big win. Mason managed to jump onto the back and held on for 3rd and Chuck came home in 4th.

This week was the first Bryan Park race. This is an awesome mid-week series put on by Matt from Altius Cycling. This is a great time to strecth the legs and put in some good efforts. I managed to sneak the out a win after getting into a break with Tim Mullins, Dan King and Andrew Troy.

This weekend is Wilmington. Should be fun