First, let me preface this post by thanking Igda Warner for all the great pictures. So wonderful to have someone out shooting and willing to let people grab the pictures. As my friends at BRBT always say, people don't want to just ride their bike, they want people to take pictures of them riding their bike. Thanks Igda! All pictures here.
Road Race
Phew, that post Battenkill lull, the first 3 laps of the RR hurt!! Eventually things settled and we went about our business of keeping breaks in check and hopefully setting up a sprint finish. The course was so fast no one could get away even the couple breaks we were represented well in. With a lap to go a group of four got away with Andrew Seitz but we brought the train to the front to bring them back with 5K to go. Not that we don't love Seitz but we wanted as many options as possible for the stage race instead of focusing on one guy. We rode the leadout to near perfection except we caught the break later than we wanted to and in the confusion Jake King used his crazy pop to get the jump on our train stealing the show. I was really happy with how things went we just caught the group later than we should have. Could we have caught them earlier, yes, I believe so, we just tried to leave it as late as possible, but 200m to go is far too late. A good lesson learned. Ben Fogle was still 2nd, but we didn't set up the sprint to finish 2nd.
Time Trial
We thought the key to our success as a team was smashing the Time Trial and then protecting our leader in the Crit later in the day. I was excited to try the new TT bike and see how I could do. I rode solid and didn't explode so considered it a success although I think I left a little something out there, but maybe that is only because Jake Tremblay rolled in 1.5 seconds ahead of me on the stage. Kelly went 1-2-4 (Jake, myself, Seitz), but the 3rd placed rider, Nick Taylor, from Bike Doctor was actually in the GC lead after a great ride and scooping up bonus seconds in the RR by finishing 3rd the day before. All of a sudden we were on our heals for the Crit.
The Crit
We knew to get back the GC lead we needed to ride the crit hard. It is a selective 8 turn crit with a big hill at the start finish with limited places to move up. It would be vital to be up front early and attack Nick and the Bike Doctor team in hopes of getting someone up the rode to soak up time bonuses and hopefully get enough of a lead to sneak in to the overall lead. Chris Jones started it out early by smashing it for the first two laps, immediately the entire field was strung out as Chris motored around the course. He pulled off and another teammate attacked and kept the pace high. On the 5th lap the field was breaking up and strung out as we went up the hill, the group fanned out with four of our riders on the front.
|
As I took in the picture I knew that the timing was perfect to launch an attack, the field was broken behind and closing the gap and I had 4 automatic blockers on the front, Curtis went first and I grabbed his wheel and flew off of it and around the corner. Looking back the rubber band broke quickly and I was alone solo. I didn't think I would stick it but I knew this would force Bike Doctor to chase hard and hopefully weaken them for the next attack. Turns out my move was all it took, the gap slowly increased, settling at times, but then moving larger, finally with 20 minutes to go I knew if I didn't crack I could stay away. each lap I could see my team controlling the field with 4-7 guys always in the top 10. Eventually Ben Frederick got in a chase group of 3 to collect some time on Nick. The race could not have gone better than it was planned with the team setting me up and then controlling the race. We were rewarded with 1st, 2nd, and 4th on the final GC podium. What a great weekend of racing in Luray, the weather for the most part cooperated and in the end our plan prevailed.
**For a full Gallery of Kelly this weekend check out the bottom of the page***
Next up is Marathon MTB nationals in Georgia and then Collegiate Road Nationals in Asheville. It's race season everybody!!
Keep those pedals spinning,
BSlow
**For a full Gallery of Kelly this weekend check out the bottom of the page***
Next up is Marathon MTB nationals in Georgia and then Collegiate Road Nationals in Asheville. It's race season everybody!!
Keep those pedals spinning,
BSlow