4th in Masters 4/5 at Tour of Granite Country Road Race

Huge thanks to Loon State and Grandstay for putting on this huge 2 day, 3 discipline race! Jake, Super D and Skibby, special thanks to you as well! Kudos to Rick Zabinski who competed in his very first road race! He put some HARD efforts in out front and when I asked him how he liked his first race he said that "he learned a lot!" (He enjoyed it but he worked hard!).

I raced the masters 4/5 road race on Saturday. The masters 4/5 and the men's 4 all mass started together creating a HUGE peloton! Very fun! The headwind was stiff and really neutralized most of the breaks.

I felt wonderful on the first lap and spent most of the time up front, lead out for a while and was first up the climb. The funny thing is I heard Neil's voice in my head the whole time saying "Don't do what you usually do! Sit in, save your energy!" It really came to bear when we turned downwind and the peloton surged to 30-35 mph, I lost about 40 places within about 30 seconds. Uh, yeah, right...thanks for the reminder Neil! Keep the vibes and prayers comin'! I hopped back in the pack and worked my way back up front because the yo-yoing in back was killing me! I stayed well protected up front for the second lap. Unfortunately I was poorly positioned for the sprint after the lead group shut down about 400 meters from the line on a small hill. That spread everyone across the road with no way to get around.

I wound up sprinting at the back of the lead sprint group and taking 4th in the masters 4/5! Not too shabby!

Back on the blog

Ok, I've been busy at work, having fun finally hanging out with Laurel and the kids again instead of riding my bike, gaining 5 pounds (but, I like the cookie!) and having fun with my residual RAAM fitness.

I've been riding long rides a couple times a week and am still in love with the bike! I just washed my mountain bike and realized that the last time I touched it was last December! Gotta get that beauty back out again.

It's been a while since I had to deal with some road rash and have only went down once before on my road bike. This was the first time that I experienced the sliding sensation on the asphalt. First off, I am very happy that the 3 who were involved in the crash only had road rash and were able to ride back home. So here's the story... I was unfortunately taken out by a rider who went down right in front of me. I'm nursing about 5 patches of road rash which are pretty well healed a week later. Neosporin rocks!