This was possibly the most fun I’ve had in a race ever. Why? I had two teammates—Allan W and Mike R—who had come out to play and did an awesome job. We didn’t make a plan prior to the start but just sort of let things unfold. I was super-excited about this race because the course really suits me; two decent climbs (the second was more fun) and a long drag to the line with a power hill for the final 200m.

Here’s the way it played well into our hands. Mike jumped off the front on the second lap and got up to as much as a 45-second advantage. There were no shortage of motivated guys on the front willing to chase so Allan and I got to sit on for a free ride. The field caught Mike at the top of the first climb the following lap and nothing really happened until Allan jumped off the front. He was gone for a while too. Now Mike and I got to sit in. Somewhere along the line, Mike snapped his rear derailleur and was stuck in his 12, which makes what he did at the end even more sweet. Since Allan was away during the final lap, there were lots of attacks and attempts to bring him back. I marked them all, tacking onto the back of anything that looked promising. Just before the descent to the second (last) climb, a group of 3 with me on the back had escaped though the field caught us at the base of the climb.

I felt good at this point and as I’d done for the entire race, I set a hard tempo up the climb—passing Allan about 1/3 of the way up—and kept up the pace when it leveled off towards the end. The pack regrouped after the descent and we started lining up for the sprint. Allan, who had just done a freakish descent to catch back on after his breakaway asked me if I felt good. Of course I did. So he and Mike (in his 12, even up that hill!) went to the front and lined it out. We were in control with 1K to go, when Mike dropped off and Allan took over. I got bumped around and pushed off Allan’s wheel briefly, but got back on. He delivered me to 300m to the line at which time we got overtaken on the right side. Somebody jumped over there and I couldn’t get across the road to his wheel. I took 3rd in the sprint.