Quick recap of my race yesterday: I had been looking forward to this race for a few weeks. I even did some course reconnaissance last weekend which definitely helped out.
After the neutral lead out motorcycle gave us the signal to begin racing a quick but comfortable pace was established up the first 10 or so miles of the climb. After two, quick descents we were at the base of the "real climb" which I believe is about 7 miles to the summit.
My first goal was to win the KOM (King of the mountain), just to see where my climbing abilities stacked up against the field. After about a mile or so up the climb the selection began and the field was stringing out a bit. With what I'm guessing was about 4 or 5 miles to go to the summit I decided to get up front and push the pace. Soon after that I had just two left on my wheel. With about 400 meters to go to the summit I attacked my break mates and got the KOM. I regrouped with my two break mates and we began the descent. We had a decent gap. The ride down the other side was fast. Lots of U-turns and hairpins. I quickly got dropped on the way down by one of the riders but was able to chase back up to him after the descent. We were still three riders, one of which was a San Jose junior (Adrien Costa) standing approx 4 feet tall and weighing maybe 65 pounds. The kid is strong but because he is so small it wasn't much of a benefit to us to have him in the group. We were holding a good tempo and the moto ref told us we had 2:20 on the 5 man chase. With approx 30 miles to go our break mate faded and it was just the junior and me.
I felt alright and was able to ride with a nice rhythm for the remaining 30. The last 20 miles of the course were really windy which made it more challenging. Felt like I was towing this little junior most of the way but felt comfortable about going to the line with him. I waited till the 200m and sprinted to the line. I can't believe our break stuck.
It was a great time yesterday. The course was really challenging and the scenery was beautiful. Props to Adrien Costa. The kid is a stud.
-Daniel Velasco
