Amphibious Assault/State Criterium Championship - June 9th, 2007

I must start by saying this is the worst course ever ridden, and even moreso being the State Championship race. It's flat, open, and boooring. It's on a launch pad for the US Navy's fleet of hovercraft- there's a large opening at the end of the concrete pad, which lets the wind off the Chesapeake Bay come straight through. It's always windy, and there's no shade whatsoever.

Today, the wind was hitting us on the final straight at about 25mph, possibly higher.

Attacks went on every few laps, none getting more than about 10 seconds on the field. I did not play a part in any of them until much later, with about 6 to go, when a teammate was off the front and someone was chasing him- it looked like Ian might bridge to the guy who was off the front, but I couldn't tell, so I chased, not really knowing what the best plan was. I could have wasted a lot of energy chasing a break that wasn't going anywhere, or I could sit up and let somebody else take over. The pace dropped horribly when I was left up front and nobody wanted to help. When the next attack went, I chased that, too.

With 2 to go the breaks were all brought back, and it appeared to be a field sprint in the making.

I positioned myself well in around 10th or so on the last lap, and went to the outside trying to find some shelter from the wind. I got a wheel, and stayed there into the final turn. Coming out of the turn, I stayed on until they both pulled off to the inside, leaving me in the wind. I decided to start my sprint there- BAD IDEA! I looked up and had at least 200m to go, and I felt like I was moving backwards. I moved over into the slipstream again and started my sprint with about 100m to go, still struggling. I then sat down for about 10m and started a third sprint with 30m to go, and passed a few more riders for 10th place at the line.

I'm happy with the placing, but still think if I'd had a better leadout, maybe on the inside instead of the outside, I'd have been up a little higher...

My teammate Jeff got 2nd in the sprint, though, for a silver medal! Rockin', man!