Manda day 1

It was a very beautiful day in ATX and I was really looking forward to racing. I raced this course last year, and ended up flatting out before I could finish. I really like the climbs, and the course is as smooth as it can get.

The race started off with several attacks to get the early break to roll off the front. I missed the break and sat nicely in the pack. as we progressed around the course the break started to pull away and put some time on the field. about halfway trhought the race the full Squadra team was put to the front for one lap to bring back as much as we could. Alan, Dave, Shane, and I had one hard lap of effort. We brought back the break to about 90 seconds before the team got off the front. We then let other riders pick up some of the chase. however 787, and woolly each had a man in the break and were trying to block. The start of the final lap Dave put Alan and Shane at the front to take up the chase. He told me to wait till after the climb and follow the attacks. We did just that, as we crested over the climb some of the bigger names put in some hard efforts. I got on their wheels and didnt let any gaps open. As the road leveled out we can see the break was on 45 seconds up the road and was closing fairly quick. Dave told me to rotate through to help bring it back. I did just that and sat on the front for some long pulls. Russ Walker helped me out with a few accelerations. We caught the break about 4 k from the line. at this point I sat up and went back into the field. I did what I needed to do.

Dave was able to win the sprint. So all in all it was a great team race. We showed that even with smaller numbers we can tactically still be a threat to larger teams. Things worked out pefectly