Master 45+ B  2nd

This series is really important to me so riding Levi”””’’s funDOH the day before was not necessarily the best idea. When I was warming up my legs felt fairly lactatey. The course had a lot of climbing for a CX course so I went out and did a bunch of intervals on the surrounding hills. After a 1/2 hour I felt great. The race was delayed by 30 minutes so for that period we all sat around and started to freeze with goosebumps. The race organizers didn””””t give us a heads up or anything…it sucked.

I was not in a good position at the start but after 50 meters of racing I was already at the front on the way to the runup.  The runup was crazy with bikes and bodies flying into eachother as people sought the best footholds up the muddy hill.  On the backside we quickly caught the 35+ guys. Weaving around guys, creating lines and passing decisively is a big part of the race. I drifted back to about 5th place but always had the others within reach. One guy took a mechanical and I caught/passed another. A Webcore rider was always on my heels and I sensed that he was going to attack with 2 to go. I rode with reckless abandon on the very bumpy descent and powered the two climbs as hard as I could. I put a huge gap on him only to look ahead and see that the leader was about 5o meters ahead with a 1/2 lap to go. I made it to his wheel at the barriers and then hit the U-turn onto the pavement and then it was about a 100 meter sprint. I gave it all I had and ended up only making it by his rear wheel.  That makes 6 2nd places for me in the last two months. I am getting kind of tired of it…possibly looking into counseling to see if I have some kind of weird mental block going on that prevents me from winning.

On the down side, the race organizers screwed up the results for just about every race. Without explaining to anyone what was going on they had us wait around for hours. So, there was no podium/awards. As of this writing they have posted all of the results except the race I was in. Who knows, maybe I didn””””t get second!

Thanks for reading, Royce

Teammates: None

Placings: Cat 3/4/5 35+   8th place

                   Cat 4/5 45+   2nd

The temp was at or over 95 degrees.  The course had six turns and was somewhat technical. A strong tailwind on the finish straight and headwind on the backside. In the first race I went to the front and did a huge pull to stay out of trouble. I looked back after 1 lap and one guy was with me with about an 8 second gap. We worked together and stayed out front for a couple of laps. When I had finished a pull I looked to see that the guy had fallen back to the field…DOH!  I eased up and went back to the field as well. The next lap the bell rang and a Corsa rider and two others ended up getting a sizable gap. Only about 4 riders did any kind of work at the front and a Corsa rider was always up front to disrupt any chasing. Somewhere in the chaos I got a prime. One rider blew up and came back from the break.  I ended up 8th.

I was debating the second race because of the heat. I stood in the town square under the fountains and went back to the car to just sit there and rub ice over my neck to get my body temp back down. I drank quite a bit and rode the trainer for 40 minutes. Just turning the legs with very little effort. I stuffed my bottle with ice and water and went to the start line again. The race was mixed 35+ and 45+. I nabbed a prime in the beginning. I just stayed at the front to stay out of trouble. I ended up getting 6th overall and 2nd in the 45+.  The prizes were nice and very unlike a Velo Promo race. Between my placings and two primes I ended up with 175 bucks. I will difinitely go back next year, hopefully with some teammates to counter the local Chico Corsa team dominance.

Thanks for reading, Royce