In the photo: Adam Messner
Written by Adam.
For Turlock Lake Road Race, Mike's Bikes E4 members included Peader O'mochain, Jungho Kim, Danny Yadron and myself. It was a wet race and rained the whole time! We headed out on the 68 mile race as a tight group and worked pretty well communicating throughout.
The course was rolling with a few flats and several sets of repeating rolling hills. Several breaks - Jungho was part of a break on the second lap and it seemed as though it was getting reeled back in but one of the solo riders from Fremont motored on off and sustained the effort all the way to the finish maintaining a two+ minute lead on the field through the final lap.
Portions of the course were under six inches of water making for tricky handling that required communication within the group. Guys were talking well in the pack. With a spirited spin Peader did a lot of the heavy lifting pulling the entire group for sustained stretches on the second and third lap setting up Danny for a strong lead out and me and Jungho for the sprint finish with the pack fighting for second since the solo Fremont rider was already done.
At the 1km mark there were two pace lines ramping to the finish: Danny led his line well into the finish stringing things out swiftly and safely and as he throttled down he effectively blocked half the field. In the adjacent pace-line I jumped the first wheel that broke at the 250M mark. Jungho was a few wheels back and closed quickly on a few wheels that were ahead of him. I overtook the first position by the 200m mark and rode to a wet finish for second since by that time the solo rider was already toweling off.
Two weeks later, my jersey is still wet and my legs are still sore, but my soul is full.
