Fremont

What can I say here? We had a good eight man break from early in the race. It started no more than 20 minutes in. It was started by Penn, Coble, Parks. I began to bridge up though I was worried that Penn was not the picked rider for the BPGers. IE, they could call on him to sit on later and what kind of fun is that?

While I'm bridging Briggs and Nietsche come up so I jump on their wheels to complete it. I don't remember when Metromint got on. Was probably already there. Neuman made a really late bridge up after the gap was pretty sizable.

Off we go, early on the commitment was questionable. I didn't think Briggs was working all that hard and many times guys in the back opened a gap for me to get back in, do more work than I needed to. Couple of times I just kept going back, trying to force them to close the gap. Sure enough BPG management was calling for Penn to sit on, which he didn't exactly do, but he was pulling 100% either.

I didn't think it would stick, but I showed my commitment as did Bob, Neitche, eventually Briggs as well. So stick it did, we ended up with a really big gap. From what I could tell Mike Sayers and some others were driving the chase early, but then a five rider group formed with Haydn(cool), Sayers, Chad, Uthman. After that the field had no will and was ultimatley lapped. Seeing Haydn in the chase really relaxed things for me since I could see he wasn't working. I figured if they caught us then Haydn would be fresh, if they didn't then wouldn't have to duke with Sayers. Win/win.

With 8 or 7 laps to go there was a $100 prime. The guys were dithering on turn five, so I attacked with Metromint in tow. He took me at the line, but we had a gap. We went hard and the gap seemed maintained.

With four laps to go I did something in the180 and slipped out. Not sure if I clipped a pedal or just cut it too low. I got up (with some crowd help) and chased the 6 man break with Briggs et al, and was just about to close when pow! My rear exploded, the sidewall damaged from the fall I guess. I'm hugely dissappointed, more so after seeing Metromint hold on solo for the win.