here we go!

So racing season officially kicked off this past weekend with the collegiate race in New Mexico. After a 9 hour ride in the Jeep (ass) Commander, we got into the Super 8 motel and checked in. Since it was already almost 11 and we had to be up by 7 to race in the morning, i just hit the hay.

We woke up at around 730 on saturday morning to head over to the time trial. We had to ride through our little truck stop town a little ways to registration, which was a complete joke with like 300 people inside a small coffee shop trying to pay and find out start times and all kinds of nonsense. After that, we rode down to the start, and were followed with the team cars that brought trainers and all kinds of stuff. Since we couldn't get our start times at the coffee shop, we all just kind of milled around the starting area until they brought out the start times. Mine was at 12:21:30pm, so i hung around for a half hour or so until11:20ish because i wanted to get at least a 1hr warmup after sitting in the cars for so long the night before. After my warmup, i headed down to the start line and waited until i was up, then i was off! Right away the course was fairly flat, and headed slightly uphill after that. Before the top of that slight uphill, i had already almost caught my :30 man, and i caught him at the crest of the hill. I shifted into my 55x11 and shot down this sweeping downhill right hand turn, topping out near 45mph, then came to the bottom of the hill and started going uphill. I didn't want to shift down into the small ring because i've been having some shifting problems, so i went into my 55x23 and hammered up the uphill part, and just after the top of that hill, i caught my 1:00 man, and could see the turnaround and my 1:30 man just taking the corner. After flying around the turnaround, i started hammering back towards the finish line with my only intent to catch my 1:30 man. he was fast, and knew i was on his tail so he was giving it all he had to stay away, but i overtook him on the last climb, and flew back down to the start line back in the 55x11 going about 40mph on flat road. After finishing, i knew i had to have done well after catching 3 people, and i ended up getting 6th place.

After the TT, i had a little while to cool down and hang around before the TTT. Our start time for the TTT was something like 1:45pm, so i started to warm up again at around 1. We started out pretty strong, each of us taking good pulls. my team was Alex Hauger, Steven Herzfeld, Herron Kennedy, and myself. The order was Herron, Me, Steven, Alex. we all climbed the first hill well, and kept taking constant pulls. There was another CU team in front of us, and when we got to the turnaround, we could see that they were well inside of the 2 minutes they had on us from the start, so we all made it our goal to catch them. After the turnaround, it took at least 2 minutes before we saw the team which was behind us, meaning that we were more than 4 minutes in front of them. On the way back to the finish line, Herron was in front of me and all of a sudden he yelled "CRASH!!" and i looked around him and John, one of the CU riders had crashed going about 30mph when he crossed up wheels from a wind gust. We steered around them and continued on, knowing that if we stopped to help, we'd just be more in the way for the team behind us. We finished the course a little shaken up both from the crash and from having to dodge a few extraneous people on the course and an oncoming team, but still managed to place 1st.

The next day was crit day. Saturday's weather was in the mid 70's all day, and sunday was somewhere in the mid to high 40's. I started where i usually start, on the outside in the front, and from the start was on the front right away. The first couple of laps went slowly as everyone was getting their footing and getting used to the course. After a few laps and a few attacks off the front by Peter O'Donnell, i decided i needed to do my share of the work, and on the uphill, tailwind part of the course, i made a huge effort to try to get away from the pack. I kept driving without looking back, and soon enough, when i did look back, i had pulled 3 riders away from the pack with me. It was me, Conor, and 2 guys from CC. We held off the pack for 20 minutes on the course, and after picking up a few more guys who bridged from the pack, Conor got 1st, i got 4th, and we all got some pretty good prime points for being in the front for so long.

getting ready for the TTT

before the TT

killing the break

driving on the front

all in all a great race weekend with some great results. hopefully i can do just as well this weekend, and i'm going to be racing my first cat 3 race on sunday afternoon, so we'll see how that goes.