In the photo: Travis Mceuen
Written by Travis
My first time racing at CCCX, not really sure why I’ve never made it out here but I will try and make more of these, definitely a fun course. This week was the hamburger course which consists of a few rollers, one downhill section, and an uphill finish. For the race, we were 7 of the 12-man field with Justin, Ben, Taylor, Will, Aaron, Trevor and myself. Needless to say, we had the upper hand and I wanted to secure my last upgrade points. For most of the guys this was their second race (Shout out to Ben getting 2nd in the 2/3 race literally right before the 3/4s).
At the whistle a guy attacked, I slowly but still quickly reeled him back in, I think he was just feeling out the field. As soon as we hit the rollers Ben attacked and got some distance. For the remainder of the lap, Ben stayed away and we did our job of sitting on the front, I was sitting the second wheel for that whole lap. Once we crossed the start/finish to start lap two a guy attacked and bridged to Ben.
On a small descent before the rollers, someone tried to put in a little move to chase and I used his momentum to take me into the rollers fast and I attacked to bridge to Ben and the other rider. The other rider looked a little gassed so before we crested the top of the first climb I put in another move and formed a little gap. I didn’t look back until I was approaching the big descent at which point it looked like I had maybe 10 seconds or so. I tried to just ride as consistent as possible. I would give it a little more effort on the downhill sections hoping that would keep the field away.
The team did a great job of just sitting on and fortunately, the other guys weren't able to organize an efficient chase. I stayed away for 45 minutes. I was never given any time splits but I could tell I had formed a nice gap. On the last lap, I made sure not to make any stupid mistakes by taking unnecessary risks and was able to cross the finish line first with maybe 20 seconds on the field. Ben gave an awesome sprint to win the field sprint taking 2nd again!! This was my first time being in a successful break and man it felt cool ( I Know it probably only happened because we were half the field ). Shout out to the team for holding it down and letting me kill myself out there, I could not have done it without them!
As always thanks to all our sponsors: Mikes Bikes, Equator Coffee, Toyota cycling, GU, Specialized, Achieve Coaching, and Capo
