Patterson - Early Bird Road Race

First race since 1998 and it went great -- 5th place in a field of ~30 and well in the points. The course is a short 42 mile out and back: gradual rolling climb with the last 1.5 miles very steep before the turnaround, and then back with the last km uphill to the finish. The group started very slow and I had a good warmup so I embarked on a casual breakaway with one other rider. We setup a moderate, comfortable rotation and stayed away for the first 10 miles - not that I expected to stay away, but I always prefer a self directed tempo rather than having to respond to attacks.

As expected there were a few good attacks over the next 8 or 9 miles leading up to the climb - I stayed in the front of the pack, but mostly out of the wind, and in good position to jump on wheels as they came.

Then we hit the climb, where two of my teammates managed to get a small gap on the lead group, behind the eventual winner who also KOM'd. I stayed with the lead group for the first half, then lost contact slightly after a quick acceleration. I chose to pace them after falling about 50 feet back, rather than risk blowing up by closing, and when the top came I accelerated through the turnaround with what must have been a 10 second gap. I bombed down the descent - still on wet roads - and reconnected with the ~5 man lead group. Couple of guys behind me also managed to catch on the descent and the first flat section, so we ended up with 8 or 9 guys chasing the 3 leaders who were still in sight.

A paceline formed, and I took my pulls but soft pedaling it a bit since 2 of my teammates were ahead. I think I helped frustrate the chase, because it took an insanely long time to close a ~50 meter gap, during which time several people jumped off the front of our group trying to catch, and forcing everyone to respond with a hard acceleration. Funny how the mind tricks you: they're close enough that you think you can just sprint out and catch them, but halfway to closing it the burn kicks in and you loose the chance. But, the catch was inevitable, really, and we all came together with about 7 miles to go.

The godspeed team had 2 guys in the bunch and with about 3 to go, one of them jumped away and established a reasonable gap (fucking aero wheels, I guess he had to use them). The other teammate sat in and blocked our paceline but he couldn't do much with a (9) man chase. I helped pull him back, probably more than I should have, but hey, it was a matter of principle: you had to be there to understand. The 1 km to go banner came up way to quick, just before we pulled in the godspeed guy, and the rest was pure pain on a gradual uphill section to the finish. I don't really remember what happened but I managed to hold on better than most to get 5th. Good race!