TNWC 6/26

Well, since it's 95 degrees--hell didn't freeze over--but I did win tonights edition of this weeks biggest race in Columbia. It was a photo finish with Ladd but the near unanimous verdict was that I got it...the lone vote for him was from some lady with 2 kids, last name started with an L or something.

The legs tonight felt like crap warming up tonight but I expected that. Karl got things rolling with the usual attack at KM 0 and I thought "what the hell..." and went with him. It was Karl, Francesco, me and some other dude. Karl and I were drilling it and we stayed away for 13min but we pretty much knew we'd be caught but it made the others chase us.

My legs started feeling better as the crit went on and at about midway there was a lull so I attacked hard up the left gutter...I picked up the remnants of an earlier break and was working with Derek and another dude. By the time we were caught the field was pretty thin and the next big attack was the final selection.

The final break had about 6 riders including Phillip (who was killing it all night), Karl, Ladd, The Harrell's duo (toby and damon), and maybe a couple more. Derek was shelled earlier so I liked my chances sprinting against all these climber types. I also started skipping some pulls to conserve a bit for the sprint. The one person I was worried about was Ladd so in the last 2 laps I stayed glued to his wheel.

Karl drilled it the entire final lap which limited any late attacks then after turn 4 Phillip took over then sat up. Ladd knew I was on his wheel and I could tell he was twitchy about it (he kept checking over his right shoulder). Phillip pulled off to the left at 300m and Ladd drifted over with him, he lost some momentum and glanced left...that's when I jumped HARD up the right gutter. I didn't really want to go at 250m but I got the gap and could see in the last 50m Ladd's wheel coming up from looking between my legs. He came around and it was a drag race to the line...a fun race.