Well, I am definitely not a roadie. Got my ass pretty much handed to me this weekend here in Lawrence at the Tour of Lawrence Road Races. Saturday was a 4 mile circuit race around KU and sunday was a 1 mile crit downtown.
Saturday looked like rain right off the bat, but it stayed dry until after our 5's race. We started out stupid fast, going 35ish down the Mississippi hill before keeping 28+ up the Emery hill. About midway up the Emery hill I looked down and we were at 28.3 and hauling ass. I barely hung on the pack around for the rest of the lap until the Power Plant hill, then I started dropping hard. The pack pulled away and I could do nothing as another half lap was down. I finished the Emery hill really strong and was finally recovered after the first lap. I caught up to Ryan Phillips from our Colavita/Parisi team and gave him a pat on the back and told him to get on. He was on my wheel for a few minutes recovering and then he and I traded pulls and worded together pretty much the rest of the race. I finished 36th and Ryan was 37th. I think Corbin was 13th, Ty was 21, and Mark 26th. The rain came in the afternoon for the Pro races. It was really funny to see a pro race that was literally slower than a 5's race. Lots of wheels sliding out, even when the guys were taking corners super slow. Glad it didn't rain on me :)
Sunday also looked like rain again, but again us 5's got lucky. Again, we started out stupid stupid fast, 30+ up New Hampshire the first few laps. Everyone in the pack was doing well in the corners suprisingly, as there were no crashed right off. The first prime was announced like lap 3 and Ty won $25 by hanging on to some dumbasses wheel. So I decided as fast as we were going, I'd try for the second prime and try to win myself $20. About halfway into the second prime lap, I saw a guy lining up outside to go, so I caught his wheel and we tore ass around the last half of the course absolutely cruising by the pack through the 7th and 8th street corners. We hit Mass just us two with the pack back a few seconds and he just pulled away from me. I gave it all I had and dude still out sprinted me by probably 2-3 seconds on a one block section. I did get second on that prime though, but by then my heart rate was out of control and I started dropping fast. I sat up and let the peloton pass me and I was gonna try to grab on at the end, but was going too slow to latch back on and got dropped, so I soft pedaled another lap and a half without getting on my bars at all before the USAC official pulled me. Thank god, I was dead after like 13 minutes. Insane fast. Dude who won in ended up at 26+ average for the 25 minute crit. Our team guys were doing really working together but a crash the third to last lap held them up and broke the peloton into two groups. Our guys could never catch back on to the lead group, which wasn;t suprising considering the quickness of the course and the lack of laps left. 13, 14, 15, 16 went to Ryan, Jake, Ty and Corbin respectively. Andy was 29th after getting caught up in a wreck and James was like 32nd or something around there. Lots of crashes the last few laps when attacks started to go, kind of glad I got pulled.
I'm ready to MTB now, but of course it's raining and will be all week it looks like. Should have ToL pics from some people soon.
peace and riding!!
