First stage race of the year! The first day up was supposed to be a Time Trial in the morning and an afternoon Crit, but mother nature had other plans. The morning Time Trial went off with out a hitch the course was all right I guess. I am not the fore most expert on TT courses. It was an "L" shaped out and back with a small climb. I still bled time to the fastest guys in our class but felt like I raced better than the previous week.
The Crit ended up being cancelled do to weather. Wind with gusts up to 58 mph with rain, hail, and snow are not considered good conditions for bike racing!
Day 2 the road race. With the cold weather, driving winds, short steep climbs and chip sealed roads gave the race a very spring classic feel! On the line I was thinking the group would easy into it and take the first few miles as a warmup of sorts. I was wrong! The pace jumped through the roof as soon as the neutralized start ended. Guys attacked to every little climb the group was like an ameba at best and a mosh pit at worst. I put in an attack at the base of a short very steep hill when i noticed a big group went with me I eased up. Big Mistake! That turned out to be the decisive break. I tried to chase and get back on, but with the wind and other peoples unwillingness to help it turned out to be an individual Time Trial. It still baffles me that people will enter a race and not try, they won't work with someone if they think that person might be able to beat them later, so they just sit in and become a spectator in their own race. I road pretty much by myself for the better part of 20 miles until I caught a guy on the short little climbs leading up to the finish. I think he was spit off the leading group, he looked kinda rough, he has the Salvador Dali snot mustache mixed with the dead elvis grin. When I passed him he made no effort to stay on my wheel.
My base fitness is where I think it should be for this time of year and I realize I don't have my top end form yet which I all ready knew. The race made it painfully clear I need to work on my 5 min power. So all in all a good weekend of racing and it let me know where I stand and what I need to Work on.
