Long Breakaway day at Coldspring Road Race

There are few races that I can say I have completed in every single year since 2007. And at this moment in my cycling career, I think there are two races that fall into this category. It is the Houston Grand Criterium, Coldspring Road Race and the Chappell Hill Road Race. Where the Grand and the CRR were this past weekend.

Waking up in your own bed the morning of a race and leave from the comforts of your own home can make a huge impact in terms of travel stress. It has been a long time since I have been able to do this (Chappell Hill 2013 was the last time). And even then, it is a long stretch to call waking up at 4:30 am to make a 7:30 am road race start “comfortable” but I'll take it.

When I finally arrived to Coldspring Texas I had a very smooth drive and was eager to race my bike. I had just finished the semester the day prior and was hoping that the sudden openness to my schedule will make a difference in my performance at the race.

As the race started we had a small field leaving the high school. Small being we may had less then 30 starters to the race. As we progressed through the first lap a small group of two went up the road about halfway through the first lap. I patiently waited for the more hilly section of the course before I was going to put in any hard efforts to try to split the pack.

As we made it through the hilly section of the first lap Tristan Uhl (787) and I were heavy aggressors. We finally forced a split going over the last hill of the lap before we hit the flats. We bridged up to the two leaders and started to rotate. At this point we had a 10 guys in the lead group. For the next 60 some odd miles we rotated fairly smooth, the gap was very big and we knew the winner was going to come from this split. As we made it through the hills of the last lap, the pressure was on as attacks and accelerations were coming from several riders, including myself. By the time we made it to the final 8 miles of the race we were down to 6 riders. As the attacks kept coming no one else was coming off the back of this group. I was doing everything I could to stay in contact with them. I was feeling the fatigue of my first long steady breakaway effort of the year in my legs. When we hit the initial slopes of the finishing climb, which is several hundred meters long I lost connection with the sprint that started almost a kilometer out. I rolled in to a 6^th place.