Red Peloton had a strong showing in a majority of the races at this year’s Colavita GP. There was a great amount of team work that led to a lot of success for the team in the form of 6 top 10 finishes! Below is Jonathan Lee’s recap on the final race of the day…the Elite P/1/2/3.

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Colavita GP P/1/2/3 Race Report
by Jonathan Lee

After the Masters 35+ 1,2,3 race where Mike took an astounding “W” for the team, i felt horrid for some reason i was really not feeling good and wanted to sleep (never a good sign for me) right after the race…grr

Josh made it to the line with NO TIME to spare from a long 4 hour drive from Reno, that gave us 7 Red Army troops to work with. Tentative plan for the boys was to get into anything that went free and pulling moves back if we were not in them. I told Matt F right before the gun went off, “get in the break..period!” he nodded as the gun went off.

I spent the first 20 mins on the very back of the field and still was not feeling positive sensations (just wanted to say sensations like the pros do..)

Eric and Matt did a lot of work on the front, i think i saw Josh attack hard and string it out as well. Zahn was playing sweeper and just as the pack was starting to tire, moved up to mark the next few moves. Charleton was also all over the front. Nick was manning the wings keeping the field Welded as guys moved past him up the sides. Nice work that enabled me to sit in and be super lazy

It is really hard for me to sit behind my guys and watch them work their butts off while I don’t do jack to assist. But frankly that is how it should be for this race. The guys need to trust that you are doing your part to reward their efforts with a podium and not wasting energy while they can be doing it for you. At the same time watching things unfold that are dangerous and we might not be in them, it is really difficult not to get active too early and remove yourself from the best strategy of the leader’s role…which in a 90 min crit…is to rest for a while and go hard late, or go in the first 2 breaks…i chose the former 🙂

About 15 mins into the race, a big break goes with about 12 riders in it. We had Matt and Charleton in the move. I knew Matt was there initially, but was happy to hear Charleton was in there too, well done guys! Matt did exactly what he was there to do! He was driving that break hard along with Mike!

After a few laps in the peloton, I saw that the break would be more powerful and therefore stay away and decided to hit out and see if i could make it across. I went for it with Charlie Schneider, Will something-or-other from Olympic Club, Brandan from Mikes Bikes, a Sierra Nevada dude, and Josh. We had 2-3 other guys but they drifted back after a few laps.

Our bridge attempt was NOT smooth. We had some guys creating gaps due to fatigue and some creating gaps as a tactic they were employing..i was not loving this one bit.

Mikes Bikes and Olympic club had guys in the break, like we did. at first they werent really pulling i tried to convince them that it was also in their best interest to work with us. to marginal success

As we rolled lap after lap our gap was still hovering at 25-30 seconds and it wasnt coming down. Charlie was pulling hard and making up for a ton of gaps each lap.

I honestly didnt think we were going to get the break. But each time we looked up at them we could tell they werent working together well either at times if not all the time…lots of gaps in their group and soon enough a few of them started to drop off..that gave me hope enough to keep going hard.

I think some of the surges finally did some of the break-mates in along with the gaps that just kept opening at the back. Josh would pull hard, then have to jump into a gap in 3rd position only to have to pull again in 30 seconds, then i would surge..kinda screwed him and that made me even more mad as i knew he was hurting and the gaps were really not cool given the unequal workload he and a few of us were taking on.

after about 55 mins of rolling this small counter-break all of the sudden we started to pull the big break back. in 2 laps we had them to 10 secs and then inexplicably we started to stall out at that split (!) being “that guy” i was really tired from the chase and decided enough was enough. i made sure to really holler twice “get on, get on” and went all out up the hill to the break. we got them, but lost a few in the process including our hard-working Josh. Only guys to make the junction were: CHarlie, Will, Brandan, Sierra Nevada, and moi

lap cards came out at the moment and we had 8 to go. Phew i was tired. i sat on for 5 more laps and started to feel better, Charlie told me he was cramping but i asked if he could help get my up in the last lap. He said he would try – always nice to have allies in arms! I found Mike and told him i was ready for a hard push through that final corner. 1 lap to go Charlie and Mike moved me up and then soon as i yelled “GO” to Mike hit out to the final corner hard!

Charlie had said (correctly) that where you go through the final corner, is where you will finish…unfortunately for Mike and i, we had 2 guys in front of us. so i finished 3rd Charlie nabbed 5th! not bad for 2.5 hours of crit racing later

Super good work from the team McGown nabbed the pack sprint off a good lead out form Zahn and eric.

Lastly: It was SO great to hear all the cheers from our peeps, thanks to all who came all that way to holler for us so cool!