The Cycling Gods Still Hate Me

So I got off work early to drive up to West Branch for a race anticipated to be one of the most grueling in the state. I didn't really have a place to stay yet, the original plan was to stay in my car. But both Doug and Mark offered a bedroom at the Super 8.

Doug got there first, so I stayed in his room. We woke up at 6:45am, packed up the stuff and met up with the other MCG riders for breakfast. There really wasn't much to eat...it sucked. Then it was off to the course.

Driving up the hill to the finish line was interesting because it made you realize how far away the finish line is, even thought it looked close. Not 2 minutes after arriving, Joe comes up to me and says that we don't have wheel support and wondered if Elisa would want to drive behind us. Once she got to the start area, I asked her and she agreed. We then told all the Cat 3 teams that we had a wheel vehicle and I cleared it with the race organizer.

Before long, the car was loaded up with wheels, the sun was shining and the race was about to start. The race started pretty slow. No one seemed that anxious to get off the front of our 66 mile hilly race. There were a few attempts, but they were all brought back.

At one point, I was riding Andrew Florian's wheel and we just came off of a downhill, so we were moving 30+mph and either we switched townships, or the road commission ran out of money, because the edge of the road we were riding just stopped. I was told someone pointed it out, but neither Florian or I saw it. Andrew successfully stayed on the asphalt as I did not. I went over the 1 inch or so drop and the sidewalls of my tires were rubbing with the road. I don't really remember how I did it, but I got back over the ledge, and kept my bike upright (though at one point my bars were turned about 30 degrees to my bike and I was at 35 degrees with the road). Everyone around me (Bret, Pat, Joe and Colin) was surprised and thankful that I didn't crash. It definitely scared the crap out of me. I decided to stay away from the edge from that point on.

A few miles later we turned and headed South. This section was quite hilly and had a very strong head/cross wind. This was definitely a portion of the course you did NOT want to get dropped or have a mechanical (as if there was a section of this course you WOULD want to lose contact with the group). As luck would have it, while riding in the middle of the group on smooth roads down a hill, as someone attacked, I had a front flat. Luckily we had a wheel car so I had a chance of getting back. I swapped wheels and took off for the peloton. Elisa is new to neutral support and didn't know she should have paced me back. So without the help of the wheel car, in a headwind with the peloton chasing a break, I tried to catch the group...yeah, like that's going to work.

I chased as hard as I could for about 35 minutes and just kept losing ground because I cant power through the wind. I eventually got overtaken by the Masters field and sat at the back of their group until the bottom of the final climb. I was toast. I made it up the climb but had nothing left, with 44 miles left, I dropped out of the race. I rode up and down the hill twice to get some leg work in, and as my group came around the next time, I jumped in the car and drove behind them.

I guess the first time they hit the hill, Mac Brennan put in a nice attack that made a selection of 6 riders that would go on to win the race. Mac would cross the line first, 50 seconds ahead of my teammate Adam York in 2nd place.

While chasing, I had considered quitting this sport. But I know I couldn't do that. So I will train hard and be back at the Tour of Mt. Pleasant ready to win, or help my team win. Hopefully my severe case of bad luck has passed, and lets hope that it isn't contagious.