Contact

Photo by Rusty

This week I finally made contact with the front of the race. I had to work pretty hard starting midpack to get through traffic, but by the end of lap one I tagged on the back of the train of the lead group and prepared to suffer. The only problem was that I had pretty much put myself as deep as I could go to make it on and going up the hill for lap two the elastic at the front was already stretching thin as the Lalondes and TJ were making there move. It was an interesting race, they only sat about 20ft in front of the group for about a lap before the elastic finally snapped and they pulled away on the third lap.
I popped twice during the race, but never cracked and recovered both times on the decents in time to pull it back together and keep the pace high as I could. After the the three of them were gone I was able to ride with Phillips for a lap to recover, and then make one final dig at the start of lap 5 to get away from him. Matter charged hard in the end and almost made it back to me but I held him off for 4th and keep the trend going by making it up one more step on the podium again this week. I was definitely suffering, but it was fun to be at the front and watch the race from there.The racing has been pretty aggressive and fast this year and I like it, there are quite a few talented riders and even though Jesse has been riding the best it is fun to see different riders at the front with any number that are able to win it.