Lack of Panache

Scott, Haydn, and I were in the 35+ master's field.

First off: Scott crashed and I'm not up to the current prognosis. Sounds like he'll be off the bike for a bit. There was a lot of gravel from new asphalt on one of the descents and a number of fields had problems with it. Shot out to Scott, hoping he's feeling better.

As far as the race, it was a smaller field, with biggest representation from Discovery Masters team. Only two Safeway guys, one of which was Chris Wire who has been riding really well. The course is not a climber's course, luckily, cause I was feeling the two crits at Modesto in my legs and needed a warm up. I know Haydn felt that as well. Luckily they supplied us with exactly that for the first 10 miles up the climb, which is really gentle with a couple of steeper sections. Then on the descent and the flats after we were whizzing along.

Maybe if my speedometer was on I would have realized that there was a big tailwind, but as it was I didn't have much clue until we took the left hand turn and BLAM into a 20 mph crosswind. Well Discovery goes to the front and drills it, and gutters it, such that we quickly lose half the field. It was really hard to back to the front that had the only echelon that you could hide in. The rest of the field was single file in the gutter and big gaps were opening up quicker than you could gasp "WTF?".

Luckily it let up after a mile or two and we did the last climb towards the turn around. This is where there was asphalt and some AV riders were already on the ground as we went up (made a mental note). Descending to turnaround I see Hadyn on the front, as we turn some guys almost stopped and Chris Wire took opporturnity to attack there. Unfortunately the feed zone was also right there which isn't too cool, but that's what happened. Some guys were going for water, including Haydn, while Brennon (sic?) from Spine and couple of others including me jumped on Wire ascending from there.

It was eight guys, one Safeway, Discovery, Spine, CVC, EMC, me, CalGiant, one other I didn't know. I didn't start working immediately thinking could see Haydn or Scott and that the feed zone thing wasn't too cool. But after going back through crosswinds, we were all alone, so it was just time to work and finish the race up. Attacking back through the hills, we lost two, including Discovery. Near the end we lost EMC as well, though he struggled back on for the finish. With 1K to go I opened a small gap and thought maybe I should go, but dithered a little too long.

Ended up with a sprint at 200M, and we know how that goes for me. 4th out 6, at least I wasn't last! CVC won it, then Wire, then Brennon.