Westy's race report from Saturday

I got 5th and was in the break all day. Not too shabby for me. Now I'm sitting in an airport loosing fitness by the minute in Japan surrounded by dick broom clad fat American businessmen talking about the huge deals they are working on. You'd think some of these guys were brokering talks in the mid-east with their boasting. Instead, most of them are probably sourcing shoelaces with Spiderman logos to give away in cereal boxes.

From Westy.................

After all the hype, endorsment deals, and fanfare I was able to finish the race this weekend.

After getting my ass handed to me at the State Crit I was a bit nervous to race and get dropped again but I was hoping that it was just a case of bad legs or the fact that I am just fat.

I told all of the Broadmark guys at the start to NOT go really fast because I would like to know what it feels like to ride in a pack at least once this summer. After my pep talk we rolled down the road in the neutral zone to the start and I was actually winning for a few brief seconds. It brought back all these memories of all the glory I have tasted over the years and brought a tear to my eye. But then this kid who looks EXACTLY like Kenny Williams decided to go faster than 18 mph and I was no longer winning.

Once the race hit the start/finish area the attacks started to go. Dickson, Gillette, Alfredo, a few Broadmark guys covered or made almost everything. I think it was lap 2(maybe 3) a good attack went and Dickson countered the move to bridge up to a solo rider up the road. They stayed off the front by themselves for a few miles but the pack was not content to let them go… but luckily a few more riders separated themselves from the main group and this contained Gillette and another B-Mark kid (sorry, forgot your name!). This brought the group to a total of about eight but it eventually whittled down to a nice group of six. My facts are sketchy here since I was riding in the group about 10 riders back.

This is where it got really fun. The Wines of Washington team and Ti-Cycles were essentially the only two programs without riders in the break. I know I should keep the fact that I am racing cat 3's in perspective but most of the people in that pack are smart, fit, educated people and you would think that if your team (wines) has 15 riders in pack you would be able to mount a reasonable chase. Some good strong pulls were made but it seemed like after about 3 minutes of pulling we would drop down to 20 mph and the break would gain some time on us. If that team would have put in one semi-strong lap of pulls they could have brought the break back. There was no talking between team members, any leadership or cohesion and that ultimately was their downfall. During this time Alfredo (who by the way is a massive sandbagger!) and several b-mark guys chased down the dangerous stuff. Terry and I kept each other amused by talking very loudly about how "when I was a fast Cat 2" or "I haven't been training at all and this is easy". We also spoke loudly about how we "told" Dickson to attack at that exact moment and how Terry "told" Gillete and the rest of the guys to attack and go up the road. We essentially took credit for the race winning break even though we were nowhere near the break or had the fitness to last one lap in it. Somewhere during the middle of the race I got so bored I bet one of the Wines guys $5 that his team couldn't chase down the break. He never really agreed to the bet but was pretty sure that it was going to come back.

I think it was lap 6 when one of the wines guys bumped one of his teammates, crossed his rear wheel and then somehow pitched himself in the air and then landed one lane over in the ditch. It was probably one of the most spectacular crashes I have seen. The guy landed on the down slope of the ditch into the nice soft comfortable grass…any other landing spot would have resulted in a broken collar bone or a bunch or road rash. It was the best performance of a Wines rider that day.

On the last lap the break finally broke the elastic and totally disappeared up the road. After going up the slight up hill through the cross wind section I decided to have a bit of fun and attacked! It was a glorious 5 seconds of speed but I eventually blew up and descended back to mid pack and eventually finish about 5 seconds off the back of the pack. My details are sketchy about what happened in the break but it sounds like Dickson put in two digs to try and get off the front but he has the same jump as a sloth being chased by a snail and it sounds like Gillette got smoked in the sprint.

Racing with the 3's was a bunch of fun and it is great to see that our 3's are as smart as our elite guys when it comes to racing. I don't think that is by chance but by design because of the great riders we have on this program and the people that are putting a lot time into the program and these great races. It never felt so good to suck as it does on this team.

I now have a wicked sunburn because I haven't ridden during the middle of the day for a long time.

Steve