Dexter Crit

This is one of the coolest crits in michigan, the course is extremely technical and a true tough mans course. The race started very fast thanks to Rob's clip in and attack method. I countered his lap 1 move and ended up away for about 6 laps by myslef just suffering, but i managed to win a prime ( a pair of rollers.....Sweet!!). I was brought back and spent about 4 laps in the field before i attacked again and that was the start of the winning break. Me Jeff Hamilton and Tucker Olander. We were later joined by my teammates Tom Archer and Brian Adams along with Danny Klein, and a West Michigan Coastal rider. The break was very unorganized and was pretty much a series of attacks and counter attacks but the course was hard enough that we stayed away. Brian had me sit on while him and Tom tried to control the group and keep my out of trouble. My stomache was a mess from eating lunch too close to the race start. I thought i was going to throw up a few time during the race. With 4 laps to go, Brian and Tom got dropped and I was left to try and win by myslef. Tucker and Danny Klein were both being aggressive and they were the ones i was expecting to make the move the last time up the hill. To my suprise Jeff did a very uncharacteristic move and initiated the attack. I think he waited until i was looking back to check on the other 2 when he jumped. Jeff is very fast and powerful and i knew that it would take a lot to catch him. As soon as I noticed he had jumped i followed, but his gap was pretty large, i was able to close most of it down, by the top of the hill. He still had about a 3 bike length lead on me and the decent through the chicane was such that it was impossible to make up any ground. When we hit the finishing stretch for the sprint ( about 80meters) I gave it all i had, but only closed down maybe a 1 and a half bike lengths and got second. Jeff pulled a great move and a well deserved victory. Congrats. After the hard finish my stomache couldn't take anymore and lost my lunch there on the side of the road. I think i almost made Tom lose his, because he had to leave. As a team we did pretty well, winning all the primes but 1 and finishing up 2nd, 6th, and 7th. Not too bad considering Tom and Brian are still not on great form yet. Look for some good placings at Allen Park this saturday.

Michigan State Road Race Championships

Today michigan had our State RR Championships at Cedar Creek in Muskegon. The course was a little unchallenging for a state champ race and a little short in my opinion also. The first excitement of the day for me was when i got a flat on the 2nd lap on a fast downhill, luckily i got a fast change and was able to chase back on, only to see the first big break of the day up the road. Rob was in the break, but i wanted to get better numbers for our team. I tried crossing to the break, but picked a bad section and wasn't able to get across. I stayed near the front and the attacks kept coming. After the break was caught, i countered with 2 WM Coastal riders and we got clear for a while and began to roll well. Soon a chase group caught us we formed a group of 9. The unfortunate part was Coastal had 3 riders and the rest were single riders. After a little while, we got organized and began rolling pretty well, everyone was contributing well. I knew Scott Riddle from Coastal was one of the strongest in the field and I knew they would send him up the road on a flyer. Just as i was thinking to get on his wheel with abou 5K to go, i swung off after pulling on the left and he attacked on the right. I immediately went to the front and picked the pace up a little and swung off thinking the other individual riders would help to real him in. i was wrong, they refused to help at all. They sat on me and refused to help at all. I was racing to win, a top ten is great, but anything other than the win was not what i wanted. The other riders had relinquished to racing for second and wouldn't contribute. I attacked them a few time and with about 500m to go i went all out to try and cross to scott, i just missed him and the rest came around me in the last 50m. I ended up 9th out of 9 in the break. I was very frustrated with myself and with the way the other riders were racing. But i guess that is bike racing. I will never make that mistake again of not being on a strong riders wheel in the closing kilometers. I guess this is another lesson learned.