Race no. 3 Donaldson center

Today's race was 6 laps at the Donaldson center, about 45 miles. A break of 3 took off from the gun and the group just rolled around at 21 mph for 3 laps. Patience was the key as we weren't too worried about the break.

Since the group was riding slow it was pretty hard for anyone to get away since everyone's just sitting there fresh and not really working. Plus there were a lot of antsy guys just waiting to launch. The best time to attack in a race is right after a really hard effort when everyone is gassed. So with 3 laps to go we had to go to Plan B which is to try to make the race hard. Robert and I went to the front and instead of a steady chase we started just drilling it and putting people in the gutter due to the crosswinds. Then LL came up and joined in the rotation cuz he wasn't feeling all that great.

We were crushing it at the front. I had a 10' NP of 310w (110%) and 18' at 300w (107%). We had the group strung out and brought the break back from two minute lead within a lap. Great job by Robert and LL.

Once the break was caught there were many attacks with Jay working it the best he could. I was pretty much toast on the 5th lap but sat in and managed to recover a bit then went back up to see what I could do.

Ryan Jenkins was off with another guy and as I came up Jay told me to go as hard as possible up the next climb to try to set him up to go across. My legs were dead so I just went to the front and sprinted up the climb for as hard as I could go for 30s (579w ave Ha!). This got things a bit closer, the shit hit the fan and I just drifted to the back to try to stay in contact with the group which was pretty hard in the crosswinds. My day was done at this point with about 6 miles to go and I just cruised in at the back.

The break got reeled in and Ryan J. then slipped off solo and held it to the line. The strongest guy definitely won today. Jay managed to get 7th in the field sprint. Not the typical result for Team OSB but we worked together, were able to execute a plan and at least had someone in position at the end with a shot at the win. Next week should be better at River Falls.

Race no. 2 Fork Shoals

It was damn cold this morning... around 30˚ and probably the coldest race I've done. Our team has always kicked ass at Fork Shoals so we were psyched, confident and looking forward to it (last year we finished 1-2-4). We did 3 laps and 45 miles (despite the flyer saying 60 miles). At the end of the first lap Jay was up the road in a small break and LL and Ryan Jenkens from Carolina Masters bridged across. Once they got together they were gone as Ryan is a great TT'er and has won a ton of races.

The POA team again had 10+ riders and one guy in the break but they didn't seem too

happy with it and they were chasing all day long. Go figure, but I wouldn't like my chances against LL and JC either. I was only really worried about one guy, Charlie Brown. He's Ryan's teammate and if he shows at a bike race there's a good chance he'll win. Lets just say on the drive up his name was mentioned a few times! So I followed him around in the group and made sure if he attacked then either Robert or I went with him.

For the finish the break basically stopped working so Jay had to do a ton of work to set up LL. It came down to a sprint and there was a photo finish for first. Unfortunately the brainiacs who were officiating forgot to turn on the camera so they picked Ryan as the winner... trouble was all of Ryan's teammates standing at the finish thought LL had beat him. That kind of sucks but what can you do. LL finished 2nd and Jay 4th.

I had a good run at the finish and basically just followed Charlie to finish 9th. I had an IF of .88 for close to 2 hrs so it was a pretty good workout. I bonked HARD standing in line at Subway...gotta eat more in these races.

Tomorrow is a Donaldson Ctr Road Race and a 11am start so it will be good and warm.

Race no.1

Greenville training series #1 was today for LL, Jay, RK and I. I woke up with a really crap stomach for some reason that bothered me all day. Weather was nice and around 50˚ at the start.

LL and I lined up at the front and within a minute POC (who had probably 10 guys there) had launched a guy...I followed that. We were caught then they launched another & I found myself away with him. We got a good gap and rode pretty hard for a lap (VO2 type pulls) then we settled in and stayed away for 45 min. The other guy wasn't super strong so I didn't think we'd stay away but I worked hard anyway to make some other teams chase--we were eventually caught.

Unfortunately right after we were caught the usual counter attacks happened and it got very hard for next lap. That hurt a bit. My first hour of racing was at an IF of .96

I was pretty much in conserve mode at this point and LL, Jay and RK were attacking and were represented in every serious break until the end, sometimes with all 3 of them up there. Nice!

On the last lap LL and Robert got into a fairly large unorganized break that dangled off the front and ended up staying away with LL getting 3rd and RK getting 7th.

I was going to just bag the sprint since 8 places were up the road but got caught up in the spirit of things and had a good run, I passed a bunch of people in the grass on the right then popped back on the pavement to get 3rd in the field sprint and I think 11th on the day.

Good strong riding by our team today. It was a really fun race.

Come TT with me

We got a new TT series here in Columbia this year. 20k and 40k options. Awesome course. First race is April 3. More info is HERE. Click the image below to see it larger.

No AM

Got everything ready to ride this morning except my motivation to get up at 5:45...got lucky with the rain and was able to do an unstructured 2:20.

Gonna be sparse updates here till the racing begins in a few weeks.