Road Race, Team Time Trial, Fruita Crit

The FLC Team Rig!
Chops throwing down in the B Men crit

The Road race was held outside Grand Junction. The mesas are cool there but other than that I don't like that place. Anyway, we had a strong team attending the race. I set up the teammates to attack on the first climb. I pinned it pretty hard and Eric Ransom launched the attack and that was the move of the day. He went with three other guys and had 8 minutes at one time. The course was a lollie pop where we head out and do laps. On the second 8 mile lap I attacked with my teammate Mike Schmidt. "Schmidty" cracked when we caught Justin Rose, from DU. Justin is also a fellow Pocatello potato head, we grew up in the same Idaho town. I basically let him pull me through the whole descent on the third lap and then left him in an attempt to bridge to the leaders. Thanks Justin for pulling me that whole entire descent. I got sketched out when we came up on some cows in the middle of the road. Justin shot right through them, in true wuss fashion I slammed on the brakes and crept through. Needless to say after chasing for the next 12 miles I brought the break back to under a minute and could see them. The break was moving faster though toward the downhill finish and I couldn't catch them. Eric Ransom had it in the bag anyway. Good job Eric.

The Team time trial was later that afternoon. I barely had time to eat a Cheetah Bar before we were back in the skinsuits with the time trial bikes out ready to throw down. We were able to race with five guys and that made it a little easier. We ended up winning but not without some serious yelling and screaming at each other. I didn't think it was possible to say the F-word that many times in a thirty minute time trial. We have got to get it together. More practice will help hopefully. Chris Kuhl almost got us DQed for dropping the F-bomb and the finish line in front of a bunch of kids. Nice Kuhl! I guess a police officer filed a formal complaint. Chris might need his mom to wash his mouth out with soap! Ha!

The second day of racing in Grand Junction went well. We actually race in downtown Fruita on an a sweet crit course. It was hard to get away because you could take the corners super fast and there was a long straightaway. There was even a round-about in the course that we went all the way around. It was a fun safe course.

The team worked perfectly together. I waited awhile to warm up and threw a solo attack that stuck for about 10 minutes before being brought back. Then the teammates attacked again. We kept the pressure on and I tried another solo attack with 19 minutes left of the 60 minute crit. This was the move when Troy Wells bridged up and then Chris "potty mouth" Kuhl and Mike Stevens bridged up with one University of Northern Colorado dude. We softened the UNC guy up a bit before the sprint. Stevens was the first to go and hung on for the win. I was right there but missed the jump and needed another gear. We finished 1st, myself second, fourth and fifth out of the break. Domination!

Finals week is upon me and I am ready for a break. I am training hard through Thursday and then tapering off for the Tour of th Gila next week. I can't believe it is here already. I love that race and hopefully I can do better than last season. It shouldn't be hard to accomplish this because last season I dropped out on the last day with 30 miles to go. I was finito!