Unfortunately I have not gotten a hold of any photos from this weekend.
Omloop. (90 minutes)
Going into the Omloop I could feel my excitement was hard to
contain. I have been lucky enough to find my friend Zach Bergh the night before
and get my hands on an old Astellas kit. I was finally in some sort of
team-clad colors and I was eager to test my legs.
This race would end up marking my first race of the year and
I was feeling very strong. I had a flawless off-season mixed with high volume, no
sickness, and no injuries.
As the race started I took off the start line I quickly moved to the
very back of the field. I know that the omloop is a course that is very hard to
stick a break and it will have plenty of crashes. Being at the back was my
way of staying out of trouble. As the laps slowly started to trick off the
counter I started to feel comfortable on the bike and started to move around the pack a
little bit. Last year my experience racing the omloop was bad. I ended up
flatting out of the race on lap three and I knew just about anything would be
better then that.
As the race slowly started to gain momentum racers seemed to
forget about how you should not overlap wheels. Crashes started to occur almost
out of thin air. I was lucky enough to avoid the first couple. However I was
quickly taken out in a mid race crash around the only corner of the race. I
quickly got up and looked at my bike. My saddle was rotated a full 90 degrees.
I crashed right next to the mechanics pit but because this race is considered a
circuit race and not a criterium I could not get back in the race. My Saturday
was effectively over. This would mark my first crash on the bike since 2011. It was a streak that I was happy with. Now I guess it is time to start the clocks over again.
Road Race (90 miles)
The weather took a crazy turn for the worst on Sunday. The
day before it was in the 70s and sunny. Now it was in the high 30s misty
conditions and wind well over 25 mph. At the start of the race I was wearing every single piece of
clothing that I brought with me. As the miles started to tick off I quickly
realized that the wind was not going to play a huge factor into the way the
race was going to develop. I was having my fingers crossed that the wind would
create tough echelons to blow up the race. However the wind was all congested
into one hard head wind section, which made it almost impossible to get off the
front or cause any sort of damage to a drafting pack.
As the race started to develop a few guys got off the front
on the first lap through river road. I was reluctant to go after them because
when the move went it was such a small number of guys with still close to 70
miles left in the race. I was almost sure that we were going to bring them back.
As the race continued to develop I was surprised with how the pack did
not show much interest in the guys going up the road (minus team super squadra forming a small chase the front). I knew there were several
teams in the race without teammates up the road and I was hoping that this
would ultimately create a chase that would bring back the move.
I was wrong in this thinking. As the race started to move
into the headwind section I would look down at my speedometer and see that we
were moving at 11 mph. I put in a few accelerations at the front to see if a
chase would get going but I had no luck forming one. As we approached the long
awaited turn to get out of the head wind I put in a hard dig. I was able to get
some separation and bridge to a lone rider who was off the front. The two of us
worked very hard in the cross wind before we get caught at the start of river road. By
the time we got caught the pack was thinned to a long line and gaps were
starting to open. As the counter attacks went over my head I was able to grab a
wheel and get in a small chase. In this chase we had about 8 riders. As we started
to gain daylight on the charging field, I could feel a sigh of relief leaving
my body. I put my focus into rotating to bring back the leaders. I knew it was
going to be a long shot but the chase was on.
As we progressed through river road we emerged at the start
of the final lap with motivation to keep pushing forward. We were caught by a
solo bridge effort by Ryan Roth (Jet fuel Coffee-Norco Bicycles). At this point we have made it on the highway
and could see the leaders only a few seconds up the road (25 seconds maybe). I was giving it
everything I could to try to bring the leaders closer but it felt like I was at
a stand still. Giving everything I had and moving at 11 mph was messing with my
mind. I knew I could go faster, but there was nothing I could do. At this point
in the race it was 4 chasing 4. We lost a few guys from the chase when we emerged onto the highway. Michael Sheehan was our 5th guy, but
he was content with not pulling since he had a teammate up the road. As we
finally made it off the head wind road the leaders had increased their lead and
were pulling away. Any chances of catching them were gone. I did what little
work I could do but I knew my legs were done. I could feel the lack of eating
has caught up to me and my legs were no longer pushing power.
As we got onto
river road Tristan Uhl (787) put in an attack that I could not follow. My legs
have officially bonked. I faded back to what would end up being chase 2 on the
road that consisted of about 12 racers. I just sat in for most of the time lost
in my own thoughts. I was blinklessly following wheels just hoping to get to
finish line. I eventually rolled in the back of this group with a line of drool
to the floor finishing in 18th place.
All in all I am a little disappointed in how my weekend
played out. Crashing out of the circuit race and then getting so close to the
leaders just to fall back through two more groups in the closing miles was not
what I wanted. However I am going to take away from the weekend that I am
feeling very strong on the bike. My training has been almost flawless and I am
ready to proudly wear an Astellas jersey as I move forward into 2014. Next
races on the calendar will be Walburg and Pacebend.
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