Albany Recap...

Great weekend in Albany... some weirdness, but generally a great weekend.

We were warming up in the cold and fog the morning of the prologue... the race route was not well barricaded and people were riding both ways in both lanes of the course. At some point, the racing started... Robert and some others were still on the course when a girl came barreling around the corner and hit him head-on... aerobars to aerobars... both ended up in the hospital and both ended up OK... but it was crazy to say the least...

Obviously, Robert’s wreck threw us all off, but I went ahead with my start time. I barely made it to the house in time and started the run. I paced it well and almost died at the line just in time for the final sprint. It took me an hour to get my wind back and feel normal. My time was slower than last year but with very difficult conditions (fog, moisture), but enough for 2nd place in our category. This is my first Cat 4 podium... I catted up a year ago after racing a few races the year before as a Cat 5... last season, I only had a few races before the broken hip incident. I was pretty stoked and what made it better, my mom, mom's friends (Chesh and DeHart), my wife and kids, and the Speils were all there to see me on the podium... talk about timing...

Crit

I had planned to stay in the pack and think about the sprint finish. I was convinced that I could win this race if I didn’t hurt myself too much before the end. The strategy was perfect and I knew it. BUT!!!!! I got in my head that I couldn’t let the 3rd place guy go anywhere… I knew he would be trying to take away my 2nd place overall, and I knew I would finish there overall because there was no way I would get dropped from the crit or the RR. Wrong! He attacked almost immediately and I jumped on his wheel. The guy was heavy, but had some major power and could corner really tight… I have no idea how he didn’t beat me in the TT to be honest… he was a beast from my perspective. He started yelling that we had a split and that we had to work together and I started pulling… I looked at my ergomo and quickly looked away… I was embarrassed to be pulling with that much power in a breakaway that I knew would fail that early in the race… but there I was. I don’t know what happened next… we got reeled back pretty quick, and I was in the red zone. I retreated back in the group to get myself together which worked well until they announced a prem and I went for it. I went pretty early and stayed out around a few corners and sprinted easily to take it. But… I blew completely to pieces. I remember Drew coming by me at least 5 mph faster than I was going and screaming at me to speed up. I sprinted onto the back and hung out there for a lot of laps. The guy in front of me let a gap form as he was getting dropped and I kept hoping he would bridge back up… the gap got wider… I tried to make it on the back and just didn’t have the legs… so I got dropped from the group and lost a half minute…

RR

Drew went in a breakaway from word go. I blocked for Drew for the first half. It was a thing of beauty… me and Davies screwing up any form of a chase for as long as we could. I fought like heck for perfect position in the sprint. I was second wheel coming up to 200 meters but the group was spread across the road a little. Everyone broke at the same time except for the guy in front of me. He decided to sit on the sprint. By the time I realized it, we were going 3 mph slower than anyone and people were zipping by us on both sides. Drew told me later that the guy was racing for third in the overall and just wanted to hold his position. I didn’t know that, but who knows if it could have made a difference. I was very disappointed afterwards, because I really thought I could win it and really had great position and it was really hard to get and hold at the end and I was able to do it… I took a lot of risks with absolutely no payout and that is what angered me. Anyway… I learned a lot and am still not sure how to do it better. I think we have got to get more than one guy on our team in the top 5-7 coming into any sprint… sure we don’t have a sprinter, but most of the guys racing with us are not sprinters either…