2nd, 2nd, 2nd...

Chad's been racing hard in the last 5 or 6 weeks of the season. Here's what he did this weekend.

Last week I headed up to Meadville for Tour de Tamarack for a 30 mile road race. This was 3 loop race with 3 climbing primes. For those who don't know what primes are, it means who ever goes across the line first at the top of the climb gets $10. Same thing as KOM. Anyway this race had an uphill finish which is great for me. The peloton stayed together for the most part, and with the first KOM coming up I attacked. With only one person to hanging on my wheel. Unlike Kinzua I made sure that I attacked again so I would go across the line first. After the line I just spun out waiting for the group to catch up. There is no way I was going to stay away for another 20 miles by myself. As we approached the 2nd climb (1 mile with an average grade of close to 20%) I thought I would attack again and see who could keep up this time, to my surprise no one could. Two down one to go. For the next 4-5 miles I road my pace and the peloton was not catching up to me. I lost track of laps and I thought maybe I can win this. Silly me, there was still one more lap to go. As we approached the start/finish line the group caught back up. My legs felt shot. I was not even thinking about winning the last KOM which was a quarter of a mile away. As we climbed I just did my pace. When I looked behind me, no one was there. I got all 3 KOM. This last climb destroyed the main field and it came down to 6 riders in a break away. I was not looking to win to be honest because I just won $30 and my legs where shot. We stayed away all the way to the finish, and as we started climbing too the finish someone attacked with only me and another rider able to counter attack. As we go across the finish I was able to hold on to 2nd place by 4 sec. The season is starting to slow down, but I still have 3 major races and one fun one. Next week will be my home town Milton Bike Race that is 28 miles, with the weekend after that a 53 mile race in Smethport PA, and the 2nd week in October a 7 mile uphill TT in Clearfield called King of the Mountain.