I had been at the race since 8am, sleeping as much as I can since I didn't get get home the night before until midnight because I was at the San Francisco Giants opening night baseball game. I finally woke up at about 11am and decided to go stretch out my legs out with an hour bike ride. I found out shortly that it's a love/hate relationship between cyclists and drivers: I got stuff thrown at me and I was being asked questions about cycling. I kept my cool with the driver that didn't like me as much, but it was an eventful morning spin ride in Santa, Cruz, California.
I got back and felt a lot better than last night; I was ready to RACE! The team plan was to get guys up the rode in a breakaway, but after 10 laps of being near or at the front nothing was getting away. Steve came up to me shortly after and told me to sit in and save it for a sprint because it was looking like it and everyone else on the team was going hard, still trying to make a break stick. I listened to Steve's advice and slotted back a few spots, but as I did, I eventually looked back ans saw that I was one of the last guys in the pack!
Eventually, a break of 4 did get up the road that includes Andy and Jim (Team Mike's Bikes), a Webcor rider, and a McGuire rider. It was time to move back up and stop resting completely. I found a sweet spot and sat there, just letting all the other teams attack into the wind trying to chase down the breakaway.
It really started to heat up with 5 laps to go, but that's where Tyler Dibble came in and protected me from the wind and helped me move up into position. The break was now in front of us, but Andy put in a last minute attack on the breakaway with 4 laps to go ad the remaining of the breakaway were done and we picked thm up right away. Unfortunately, Andy got caught with 1 laps to go, but that's where Tyler Brandt went on the attack and he got a small gap! This was an interesting situation because we had Rainier, Tyler Dibble and myself lined up behind one McGuire rider that was on the front chasing Tyler. It slowed up a little bit on the back stretch and I told Rainier to go. Right then a McGuire guy came up and attacked! Tyler was starting to fad a little bit and I told Rainier to just use him as a lead out guy. As we came around the last turn, Dibble clipped his pedal and I had to come around him on the outside on the hill in the wind, but I slotted back in behind Rainier for a couple seconds as we crested the top of the hill. It was all up to me now: I jumped out into the wind and sprinted as hard as I could and came up with the WIN!! I was nervous in the closing meters because Logan Loader (Team Exergy) was on my wheel, but I guess he had some sort of mechanical going around the last turn.
We might not have expected a field sprint, but we definitely put plan B into the fold and executed it perfectly! The entire team rode extremely awesome today and it couldn't have been done with them! This all couldn't have been done either if it wasn't without the support of Mike's Bikes and all of our sponsors!
Thank you for reading!
Read more at Norcal Cycling News and check out some great pics here.
