Vance Creek RR

It's been a tough couple weeks of racing and training.  With the disaster of Walla Walla in the rear view mirror, I was looking forward to a rebound race at Vance Creek.  The course was a great set-up in it's length, field size, elevation profile and finishing stretch. With Dave and Brian both present and riding strong, I was hoping we could really make a charge for a good result.

Through most of the first 5 laps, there were short lived attacks off the front.  For the most part, we didn't give any of these attacks much attention but there were some hard efforts devoted to the single climb each lap.  The climb was moderately steep and long but not enough to shed many riders.  As we rolled into the last of 6 laps a break off the front was looking dangerous but not out of reach.  The winning move came when a couple of opportunistic riders including Travis of Hammer, bridged up to the break before the climb.  This clearly recharged their effort and with 3 miles to go, it was clear that it'd take some serous coordination and effort to pull them back.

We hit the last climb and a Escape Velocity rider made a full sacrifice to get this teammates up to the break.  He was cramping and clearly in pain but the dude was hammering it out.  I was on his wheel and when he fatigue set-in, I took to the front and continued the charge.  There was well over 1K still left together but we starting passing up riders in the break quickly.  With just 2 riders ahead and the 200m sign in site I was still on the front of the group and riding hard but there were clearly at least a dozen other riders who now had more fight in their legs then I could muster.  At the 200m sign, I was swarmed by the pack and simply couldn't respond in any way.  My legs haven't felt that lifeless since Stage 4 of Mount Hood.  I was going backwards and in just seconds, dropped from 3rd to 23rd place.  Brian and Dave finished in the top 20 which is outstanding.

Bike racing can be hard....Super god damn hard!  It's unlike other sports where fitness and hard work get you across the line with a sense of accomplishment and smile on your face. There are a thousand different ways to F up a bike race and lessons are often learned the hard way.  This one was particularly hard because I've made the same mistake before and clearly didn't learn from it.  Time to start riding within my limits and using my head.  There's some great racing remaining and  I should say that most everything about this race was super fun.  It's definitely on my A list for next season.