Written by Glen Feller.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into the 2018 Modesto RR. Leading up to this race I hadn’t had any successful race efforts so far this year. The course was 8 laps of a pancake flat 9 mile loop for 72 miles total.
Cam Walker, Matt Swartwout , Michael Kurnik and I lined up with the intention of covering any legitimate looking moves and setting up for a sprint if it came down to one. Both PenVelo and Dolce Vita had a few strong guys who could get away if we weren’t careful so we had keep an eye on them. The first lap was pretty tame with everyone trying to feel out the course. A few break away attempts, but nothing substantial. During the second lap things started to warm up a little with more and more attacks off the front. We tried to rotate duty at the front and cover what we could. Michael Kurnik was able to make a good counter attack and managed to stay away for about a lap before being brought back. By lap 4 there was a lot of frustration due to riders in the break attempts not cooperating. This continued until the start of lap 5. At the start of lap 5 and AMain rider had rolled off the front solo and no one chased him initially. Once he had a 15-20 second gap an attack was made with intention to bridge. The rider who started the attack crossed wheels with a PenVelo rider and ended up taking several riders down with them. Once I figured that I was clear of the crash I sprinted in hopes of bridging to the AMain rider. After an extremely tough 5 minute effort I was able to bridge up to him. No one appeared to be chasing so we decided to dig in and see if we could build on our gap. Cam, Matt, and Michael did a great job shutting down any chase efforts and by 2 laps to go we had close to 3 minutes on the field. At this point I felt thoroughly cooked. Shortly after the start of lap 7 the AMain rider put in an attack and I was unable to hold his wheel. I tried to dig deep and reel him back in but had no luck. At that point I had to go into TT/survival mode in order to try to secure second and hold off the field. Thankfully I was able to hold off the field and place second. This result would not have been possible without the efforts of Cam, Matt, and Michael shutting down shutting down any and all chase efforts.
