Last week's race was at Renaissance, a place that with all my riding there this year I've felt very comfortable. Got to the race and did half a lap to warm up. When I got to the start there was only six of us in the expert field (Robert Fish: very fast, Justin McKean: very fast, Luke Sagur: very fast, Justin Brayton: very fast, a guy I didn't know, turned out to be Cliff Kenyon, who is from Connecticut, and myself). I commented to Robert, a fellow BikeSource rider, that I'd probably riding by myself for a long time during the week, since I figured the four really fast guys would pull ahead and be fighting for the win, while it would be me and the new guy somewhere behind them. I turned out to not be too far off.
Got a good start, let the really fast guys go: they were going REALLY fast, trying to get into the wood first. About 2 minutes after the start, new guy: Cliff, passed me, and I followed behind him, both of us were going right about the same pace. Was pretty easy to stay behind him, but I wouldn't have wanted to go much faster. Cliff had some kind of issue on an uphill and I was clean going up the hill and was able to get around him. For the next hour and fifteen minutes I rode by myself, no one that I could see in front of my and no one (except for maybe one or two super sport guys) came up behind me. My bike handling felt REALLY good, obviously my fitness is off from earlier in the year, but for the first time since my ankle injury I actually felt like I was handling the bike like I was earlier in the year. Ended up finishing 5th behind the four really fast guys, Cliff DNF'd, I'm not sure if it was from the issue going up the hill when I passed him or somewhere else. So I finished last among finishers, but felt really good about the race.
Got a good start, let the really fast guys go: they were going REALLY fast, trying to get into the wood first. About 2 minutes after the start, new guy: Cliff, passed me, and I followed behind him, both of us were going right about the same pace. Was pretty easy to stay behind him, but I wouldn't have wanted to go much faster. Cliff had some kind of issue on an uphill and I was clean going up the hill and was able to get around him. For the next hour and fifteen minutes I rode by myself, no one that I could see in front of my and no one (except for maybe one or two super sport guys) came up behind me. My bike handling felt REALLY good, obviously my fitness is off from earlier in the year, but for the first time since my ankle injury I actually felt like I was handling the bike like I was earlier in the year. Ended up finishing 5th behind the four really fast guys, Cliff DNF'd, I'm not sure if it was from the issue going up the hill when I passed him or somewhere else. So I finished last among finishers, but felt really good about the race.
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