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| the break: Photo courtesy: Nicki Kupecz |
-The race started out with a mad dash to the first turn before things settled down. Once the pace calmed down Jake and I moved up to the front of the group to keep an eye out for any early breaks that might want to get away. Early on the first lap of the race a few groups tried to get away early. One of these included a dangerous group of 15 riders, when I saw this group go I jumped across to it, but we were quickly brought back. Eventually a small early break of three went up the road allowing the pack to calm down. I was feeling a bit antsy with this small group pulling away even though it was still on the first lap. I quickly found Jake and we talked about what we should do about this early break, we both decided to wait for it to come back on its own. While the break was up the road several small groups of riders tried to bridge the now 45 second split. Jake and I followed wheels to these chase groups but they were all quickly brought back. After a few laps of nervous energy from a lot of riders, the break was eventually caught. However the race didn’t get any less stressful. After making the connection with the break a strong counter came from the pack. I looked up the road and figured that it was still too early get in a break. However three other racers took after the solo rider and formed a small group of four. Both Jake and I saw this and still didn’t think it was going to stay away. The gap the lead group got on the field increased quickly to one minute and then to ninety seconds. The pack seemed to be taking a nap and uninterested in chasing down the quickly pulling away leaders. I was getting nervous from this lack of interest, especially now that I found out two of the three largest teams had a guy up the road. While I was trying to decide on what to do about this break a group of two attacked on the far side of the road out of the front to bridge to the leaders. I was waiting at the front of the main bunch for the time gaps to come in while trying to hold my composure. Now at just over halfway through the race there was a lead group of four with a two-minute advantage, and a chase group of two with a one-minute advantage. When I heard these splits I moved up towards the front and waited for the hilly section of the course. As we hit the hills I started to do a lot of work on the front to try to get any split going and start a chase, but every time I pulled off a teammate from a racer ahead would soft pedal through to try to disrupt the pace. I was getting angry with the team tactics going on (because they were working!) and put another attack on a slight downgrade. This must have surprised the pack because no one was chasing and I quickly got some daylight on the group and started to bridge towards the leaders. After a few minutes of solo bridging I looked back to see Austin Stewart (Elbowz) bridging across to me. The two of us came together and formed chase group 2 with a minute to bridge to chase group one and another minute to the leaders. We were both taking strong hard pulls at the front up the hills and across the flats quickly closing in on the groups up front. We eventually caught a fellow Houston racer Pedro Martinez (Sun and Ski) in the middle of the gap. A little over a lap after Austin and I started bridging we caught the chase group and now formed a new chase group of four. We kept the pace high knowing that with four racers we could catch the leaders (1 minute up the road now) relatively quick. All four of us took equal pulls and worked hard at the front bringing the time gap down. We caught the leaders exactly one lap after Austin and I caught the chase (two laps after I got away from the bunch). Now we were getting some new time gaps saying that we were only 20 seconds up the road from a large group. I looked back and to my surprise and group of around eight to ten had been bridging across to us. As soon as they caught us we formed one large lead group of 11-15 riders with all the large teams represented. We continued to work hard with over 30 miles to go towards the finish line. Within the break there were a few attacks to try to get rid of the excess amount of riders but for the most part things stayed together as we charged towards the finish. Some of the teams that had more than two guys in the group started sending riders up the road to try to split the group. I tried my best just to follow wheels to prevent my self from getting stuck behind any dropping riders. As the laps started ticking down so did the snap in everybody’s legs. As we started the final lap we were still a large group of almost 15 riders moving towards the finish. As we were cruising along I kept an eye out for any of the strong looking guys that might want to try to go solo towards the finish. In the final kilometers all the late moves that tried to go all got brought back and everyone was getting ready for the final sprint towards the line. When we were in the final kilometer I positioned my self up towards the front of the group on the right side sitting comfortably on 4th wheel thinking I had got my self a good position for the uphill 250-meter sprint. As we hit the base of the hill I was sitting third wheel and started my charge up the hill on the right. As I was starting to come around the riders I was behind almost every single person behind me surged around on my left. I quickly tried to get behind them to get some momentum for another kick for the line. Unfortunately this second kick never came and I finished behind the bulk of the break getting an 11th on the day.
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| Photo courtesy: Nicki Kupecz |
After this race I was very happy with how I made it into the winning move and how I was almost in the position to get a big result. Now I just need to work on that finishing jump and positioning. (I was a little bit too close to the front for this finish) Better things will be coming these next couple weeks that I am certain about. Not just for me but also for my team, Jake finished in the top end of the pack sprint and Cody and Stephan both placed top 10 in the pro 1 race
