The race started off kind of slower then usual, thanks in part to the new team “Knees” out of Dallas. They pretty much had maybe 8-10 dudes. So early breaks were hard to get into, they would get into everything and not pull or even soft pedal around… after a few annoying attempts by myself and a few others we just started to chill aka getting angry… haha Mr. Speed and I saw our opportunity to attack when the Knees leader was taking a piss. Yeah not the most gentleman thing to do but the racing was super boring and negative. So if you got to go you got to go right? We stayed away for some time almost catching the 3 riders in front of us, but didn’t. Then at some point Collin got off the front with Speed again in a 5 man group. That one looked good to last awhile. Then it went back to boring till a few miles before the cross wind section where the big red team started lining up their riders for a nice cross wind gutter fest. I was sitting nicely on the former British National Champ’s wheel when it started to go down. My positioning could have been better though when it started to get really hard. Shortly into the section we picked up Collin’s group so we had Collin and myself in the lead group. I spent way too long in the gutter, bridging gaps I couldn’t push the watts. After a few seconds after I got dropped out of the lead group Adam came flying by me! He dangled for a few minutes off of the lead group but never caught them. Once he was back with us a nice chase group was formed driven by Mr. Haga and Big Daddy. I knew if I was able to keep Adam chill and get him back up into the lead group we would have a chance. After long pulls and a lot of yelling we finally caught the lead group! But not soon enough, the winning break left right before we got there. At this point I made it over the hills dangling on the rear in the gutter again but had nothing left, so I popped off the back. Adam got 7th! 2nd in the field sprint!
It was a good first race for the team, we’re small and have some learning to do but we were in every move except the end. We have the power to win and will at some point. I like the fact we went into the race as one of the smallest teams yet we were always there in every move and always at the front.
It going to be a great year! I think we’ll be winning more than just a few races.
