Yesterday was a longer point to point road race with plenty of ups and downs and a few lefts and rights. For me the final climb was about 500 meters to long. I ended in the third group about 10 minutes back with 40 other guys. Since I was ten minutes away at the time I didn’t see it but some guys took a short cut and jumped a curb to get to the line first. The race decided to not award placing, points or money at the line and give the front group of 47 all the same time. Seems like a fair way to handle it except for the guy that followed the correct line.

Last time I did a sub50 mile road race it was a lot easier. I think it was 3 laps of the Carter Lake circuit in 2000 as a cat 4. I think I got drop the second time on the climb which is what happened today also. We started with a dodgy neutral then about 12 miles of rolling downhill before the first real climb. It was quite steep and 2 miles long and 1000k high, I came off towards the top but got in a good group and we rolled back to the field without a ton of drama. For a second it seemed like our chase was splitting and it looked like Brad and I may have a chance to ditch the 40 other guys and make a run for it but the field eased up enough for us all to get on. After we got on I am pretty sure there wasn’t a flat bit on the road, up and down with lots of lefts and rights. Since it was a new circuit nobody really knew where we were going but I only saw one crash which surprised me a bit. Three quarters up the second half of the stair step second climb I blew and found myself in another big group but we were only 20k from the line and weren’t getting back on. We rolled steady to finish 2.35 back….

I did my first “real” team time trial yesterday. As you would guess it hurt pretty bad and I wasn’t a huge asset to the team. We all did what we could but out result wasn’t what we were looking for. Today is another new stage, even though its quite short there are few hills which should lead to aggressive racing.

HELMETS ARE GOOD