Grandview (plus or minus 13 laps)

Since I took last weekend off completely I decided that this weekend I should hit a race somewhere. That race would be Grandview. A 25 lap/mile crit. Things were going fine for me at the start. I was about halfway in the pack and feeling ok.

Crits are a lot like cyclocross (to me anyway). I like to go hard, recover, and blast again. It's pretty violent on your legs. Fun right?

So at lap 5 or so two guys went out and were away. I decided that without teammates my best friends would be breakaway buddies. I quickly moved to the front. On lap 7 I was sitting third wheel and noticed that we put enough of a gap on the peloton that we could bridge without pulling the gang along with us. I jumped from my spot to the front and pulled. I was bridging the gap to second. I figured the four of us would chase down the solo rider in front and make a group of five. I also figured that if we worked together we could hold off the peloton.

When I got across to second I looked back. The other two hadn't come along with me. "Oh boy." I thought to myself. "This is going to be hard work." The two of us worked together nicely until I noticed his pulls were getting slower and shorter. We were no longer gaining on the solo leader and the peloton was coming hard. I decided to sit up and wait for the pack. When they zoomed past, I'd hitch a ride I thought. It just wasn't to be I guess, as the group flew past I couldn't hang on a wheel to save my life. I was toast. Burnt to a crisp.

I looked down at my computer and saw an average speed of over 25mph. I knew I wasn't going to catch back on the back so I bailed. I was ok with it though since I blew up going for it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Next weekend is the Hammer Creek road race. It's a 4.25 mile loop so there should be lots of action. I have 10 laps. Yum! Check it out at: http://www.richruoff.com/.

UAPM is selling the lovely re-usable grocery bags you see pictured. They are $3 each. UAPM does a lot of good work so help them out if you can. Check out their link on the right side of blog.