Monday, April 20, 2009

Road Conference Championships


What a weekend!!! I was afraid when the trip began that we might have the same bad luck as last year but it turned out to be a great weekend for everyone.
Saturday was a sunny and warm day, Brock had Elliott and myself up at 5:30 in the morning, and we hit were ready to race. The road race was an extremely flat course with less then 500 feet vertical over 65 miles of racing. With a flat and narrow course this course definately favored the sprinters and put me at a disadvantage and gave Brock a great chance. The Men's A and Men's B fields finished as a group sprint, with both having 1-2 people off the front. Brock positioned himself well and took 3rd overall and won the field sprint for the Men's B. I was getting set-up but was uhnlucky and got boxed in, and finished 23rd in the field sprint. The Men's D field shattered and Elliott has his best ever finished and placed 7th, after getting pimped shortly before the sprint.

Since we did not have a TTT team, we headed back to the hotel for a shower and a great nap. We woke and then attended the conference Banquet, we ate a ton of food!! Then Ryan and I stayed for the conference meeting. We won the bid for the Conference Mountain Bike Race for Fall 2009, and our Race weekend for road 2010 is April 10-11, the weekend before Champs at Virginia Tech.

Sunday, elliott woke up early, walked out the hotel door and hoped on his bike for the crit. With me sitting on the course and Brock watching from the hotel room, Elliot started the Downtown crit, he complains of a car on course but was able to finish in 13th place.
Hours later Brock jumped on his bike and was ready to terrorize the Men's B field. He went early and attemped a break in lap one, after a few laps of all out effort he was a caught by a small group and sat in for the rest of the race. He made a great move for the "W" at the finish and took about half a bike length in the sprint. Giving Brock a great Championship weekend. Then it was Emily's turn with the Women's A. She's not a WVU member currently but she'll be here next year, in a stiff compitition for 1st place in D2, Emily was able to pull it off, and even though she did not win, she was able to take the overall conference point and earn herself a pretty pink jersey. Finally, it was my turn to push the pedals. After a rough day on Saturday and still being sore from the dog incident, my game plan was to sit in, and just enjoy the ride. Brock was very nervous watching me sit in the back of the peleton for the first 15-20 minutes of the race. I saw a small break start to happen on the backside of the course and I knew it would be able to stick, and my adrenaline picked up and I wanted in that group, the pelton came around corner 6 and no one was responding to the break, so in one move I jump from the back and came around the peleton, and was chasing solo to the break, I caught in b3 turn 3, and started in rotations, Wake Forest was trying to block to break and bring it back, but after a few others joined the break, it was home free. I was able to take a 4th and a 1st in primes (my first ever 1st place prime) and then with 4 laps to go, the break could see the peleton just ahead. About half of us wanted to stay out of the peleton and our pace slowed, until a WF rider jumped and forced all of us to chase, mixed into the group, it was an intense final lap, I missed the jump through the pack, and sprinted in the group, grabbing a 7th place finish overall.

While cooling down, about 90 seconds into it actually, I noticed my rear wheel felt weird and found a large splinter through my tire, luckily I was able to finish the race before the flat occured.

It was a great Weekend for all of us, and I am ready for a great summer season now.

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