It was pretty cold up in WI, which by itself isn't all that bad, but when you combine 40 degree temps and rain for road race, it's not all that great. Especially when the start is a really long descent. Long story short: I was in the back of the field from being nervous on the descent and was trying to move up, but the pack covered the whole road and then there was a retarded crash mid pack on a steep hill which caused everyone to get off of their bikes in front of us and everyone was already trying to get around them so there was nowhere to go.. By the time I was able to get back on my bike and pass people again, most of the field was long gone and despite my efforts I couldn't catch back on. I chased for the whole rest of the race and kept catching random groups and ended up 49th out of about 150. Not bad considering I lost contact with the field in the first lap... I am a bit upset about it though because I was feeling great and I know I could've have had a great race if I stayed in the pack..Anyway, the Crit the next day was still cold, but no rain. It was a super fast course and there were a lot of attempts to break away, but the field wasn't having it. There was an amazing all or nothing attempt with Greg Christian (MSU), Rob Bush (Marian), and Eric Thompson (LMC) with 8 laps to go until about 3 laps to go. I was holding my breath since I know all of them to be extremely strong riders. But it ended up coming down to a field sprint where Alder was able to take 6th with our teams top placing for the whole trip.
Our TTT team also took 6th the next day as well which was pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to next year where the TT equipment is banned, should level it out pretty good.
The Banquet was very nice and way fancier than all the others (track, mtn, cross). They had a little trivia quiz where the top 3 tables qualified for the tricycle race to win some Bontrager stuff. Thanks to a handfull of I-phones we qualified and our stellar team of skilled riders won the tricycle race so everyone at our table won some free Bontrager RXL shoes!!!
I asked for the mtn version so I could use them for cross since I just bought some new shimano road shoes.
Nationals ended kind of abruptly and we had the long drive back to KY following the TTT on Sunday morning. Got back late that night, went to bed, got up and then packed up everything and I had to drive all the way back up to MI... Not all that fun, but I was super excited to get back home.
One reason I was excited to be back was to be reunited with my mtn bike which I hadn't riden since Mtb nationals last October at Lake Tahoe. I took it out to Stony to shred some trails and was suprised to find most of my technical skills still somewhat intact (thanks cyclocross!). Saturday I ventured out again to Stony where the endurance 6/12hr event was going on. I was thinking about racing it, but the entry fee was a little too pricy and I decided to ride 6 hours without paying. I tagged along with the Simonster for a couple of hours and then rode with a couple of other random people including Weinert who has ridiculous skills in the twisty stuff. It was a fun day, but I was cooked by the end of it. There sure was a lot of climbing out on that course.
I put in some other really long rides this past week and I rode to Pine Knob mtn twice. It's a pretty good area with some hills, but it is really busy with cars. Oh how I missed city riding with gas stations at every block. You could go an hour in KY without seeing anything..So I'm finally starting to get settled back home. Everyone's still got school or work, so no one can really ride during the day so I've pretty much been doing a lot of solo stuff, but that's good I guess. With all of the long rides I've been doing lately it feels like it's been forever since I've raced. Looking forward to racing Waterford this Thursday to see how fast the MI people are right now and then Alan and I are off to IL where I get to do my first race with most of my new team. I'm pretty excited about that! Pretty upset about missing West Branch, but sacrifices must be made I guess
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