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This video clip is of the last 8:54 minutes of the race. First I want to thank all the sponsors of the race & team CBC: Cyclextreme Bicycle Warehouse, Walt's Bicycle Shop, Specialized, Shakespeare's Pizza, Peak Roofing, My Health Village, Columbia Center for Dentistry, Smart Business Products, Tryathletics, I.B. Nuts & Fruit Too, and RE/MAX Boone Realty. Also I want to thank my teammates, Ethan Froese, Johnathan Schottler, Jason Ozenberger & Ebby Norman. They are a superior crew and only a partial list (Kersha, where were you? You're cool.) I will produce a best of video later, but this footage shows what most people want to see..... the finish and what happened and how did things go down.
I believe 67 riders started the category Pro 1-3, including the professional rider for Jelly Belly, Brad Huff (dnf due to mechanical). The final break in this clip shows 7 riders, but we started at 10, lost maybe one and had at least 2 bridge up (which was impressive). The last 7 include myself, Jim Vandeven, Zack Reed, Clayton Burrows, Rob Bell, Andy Malcom, & Andrew Lister. The race length was 62 miles and 2 laps and the temperature was warmer than most expected at 45 degrees with a moderate wind. I think the temperature played the biggest role in fatigue in that most of us were overdressed from being used to colder recent temperatures. I removed my head cover, arm warmers and unzipped and pulled up my tights and was still warm. The winning break developed after Ethan, Johnathan, some Jason and I put the hammer down on the stretch of the finishing side on lap two. We expected more cross wind, but it was mostly frontal and the damages where limited to the pack as a result. Still this effort softened up the field to create the winning break which developed almost immediately after.
So in this video it should be noted that there is a little bit of "cat-n-mouse" because we are approaching the finish and nobody really wants to work. This is apparent at minute 2:34 where the paceline rotation becomes all screwed up. At minute 3:00 a soft attack occurs and I jump up and this is immediately responded to from behind me, so I let off. At minute 4:04 a nice solo attack comes from the right immediately after I am beginning to take my pull. It doesn't show on video, but I sat up and showed that I would not chase. To which someone took up the chase. I sat on the tail end for about a minute and launched my counter attack at minute 4:56 and go as hard as I can for approximately 5 minutes. I don't look back and instead commit myself. I do however see a shadow indicating that I have at least one person on my wheel. The wind conditions are not perfect for my attack in that it is mostly head-wind and not cross (well.....just a little cross).
About 300 yards to go I started to set up and force my drafter, Jim Vandeven to lead out the sprint. He indicated that he was not going to sprint me and I took him at his word, but still drove as hard as I could to the finish line (just in case).
And that's it. I won! I couldn't believe it. It really felt good and I was and am still very happy about it. It's a very small early training race, and has no serious meaning. But it's my hometown, put on by my team, witnessed by my peers and friends. It just symbolizes to me that "hey, you are pretty good", and "all that hard training and sacrifices has produced something that is beyond a little hometown training race", it's hard to describe, but it's something like being all shiny and new again.
Official race results: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=507828
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