Madera and Such

Finished up the Madera Stage Race last weekend, and she was a doozy. Its four stages: a hill climb TT, a flat TT, a crit and a RR. I wasn't made to go uphill, so the GC is usually out for me. I did manage to take more than 40 seconds off of last years time in a half hour TT, which is good, but it still left me over 3 minutes off the leader. Ouch. Phil said he had bad legs, but finished in tenth and Vinny was in 7th. Nice rides by both.

Our fearless leader figured that with two strong guys in the top ten unless I felt fantastic I should soft-pedal the flat TT and save it for the crit and RR. Vinny rode a great race and held on to his GC spot, but poor Phil, who according to his time splits was riding to a win over BJM flatted with a third of the race to go. Lame! But we made up for it in the crit.

When we showed up to the crit that afternoon we saw a staggering sight. The wind was blowing hard enough to cause a selection in the Cat 3 crit! For those of you not familiar with cycling seeing a Cat 3 race split apart is like watching an eagle snag a fish out of lake; you're pretty sure it happens, but you almost never see it, and when you do it is awesome! We knew we were in for a good crit.

BJM hit it hard from the line just to swing his dick, and luckily Briggs was on it. They got reeled in, but the pace stayed high and attacks kept coming. Finally Bosch got a gap with BJM and Rob Britton (Bissell) and they looked to be pulling away. I saw my chance and jumped across the gap. Once I got up there we started working pretty well and the gap was growing. We managed to work well enough to stay away for almost the whole race.

Back in the field it was absolute chaos. CalGiant had missed the break so they lined up their whole team and guttered the field. In the break we kept passing riders who had been popped from the group behind and were getting lapped. There were a few people that we blew past that really put a smile on my face. There were some intermediate time bonuses in the crit and we wanted to get Bosch 8 seconds to move him into 10th place on the GC. Unfortunately Rob Britton kept sprinting around him to take them to secure his already solid third place in GC. I asked them to give Bosch one, but they said, "hey, this is a race. We're going to go for it."

So when BJM looked  at me with 4 to go and said, "Rob wins or we stop working." I wasn't inclined to just give them the win. This was a tough call for me. Thinking that we had 2 guys in a group of four and were guaranteed a podium spot with two pros it was pretty tempting to take the deal. But shit, like he said this was a bike race. I told him I meant no offense, but we should race for it. So I stopped working. Britton attacked and Bosch went with him, but I waited for Ben. He told me he knew how to play chicken and he could do it all day. We shadowed each other as Rob and Bosch rode away and the field bore down on us. He took off down the finishing straight with 3 to go and I tried to jump with him but was late. It took me almost a full lap to get back up to them, but when I did we all sat up and stopped working.

We came back to the field with 2 to go. Charlie Avis of the Trek team took a flyer as we got caught. he had a decent gap, but it looked like he was coming back before the finish. With one to go Phil yelled and asked me what I needed, but it was a bit chaotic and I didn't see a leadout figuring into the finale. So I followed a surge and moved towards the front. Phil also followed a surge forward, but sensing a hesitation he shot out in a solo move with 3/4s of a lap to go and went straight past Avis and kept hammering towards the line. I slotted in around 10th wheel as people began to chase and found a clean line down the long finishing straight and hit it. I saw nothing but white Yahoo! kit in front of me and in those fractions of a second in a sprint when time slows down I thought, hey, I could just coast in because its only teammates in front of me, oh wait, if I'm gaining on them then whoevers behind me could be gaining too. So I drove to the line and finished right behind Phil who held us all off for the win. I was second with Bosch 3rd and Briggs 5th.

I'm proud of myself for not playing it safe and laying it on the line. You've got to be in it to win it. I think that was one of hte best races the YCT has had thus far.

Unfortunately we screwed the pooch a little bit in the RR the next day. Filip rode like and animal and hung tough in the winning break all day waiting for reinforcements that never appeared. We missed the second break of the day and just sort of rolled it in. Uggh. We ended with 3 riders in the top 10 on GC, but no one on the podium. Oh well. We're still figuring it out and I think we learn a ton every race.

I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything ready for two weeks on the road. I leave tomorrow for the San Dimas Stage Race and then stay in southern California for the Redlands Bicycle Classic. These are the first big races of the year and we'll be going head to head with full pro fields. I can't say the courses suit me that well, but if I see an opportunity 'm not going to hesitate. Now its time to pack my bags before a long day of making sweet, sweet automobile love to I-5.