By Eric Riggs Dunnign Hills RR is a flat, eighty-seven miles, hot road race. The heat would be the deciding factor of the day.
Only teammate with me was Tyler Brandt, fresh off his US National Team ride in Europe full of canal water and frites stench. We were outnumbered 2:6 Cal-Giant/Specialized and 2:9 Marc Pro-Strava riders and planned to get in the break together to minimize their numbers and maximize ours.
Pretty quick in the race Brandt and I found ourselves in a fifteen man breakaway, changing the ratios to 2:2 and 2:3, respectively. We started attacking in tandem, trying to force another selection, and for the next lap the race was all over the place. I rode the lead break of four, and other breaks were all over the road from miles thirty-five to sixty, when they all seemed to come back together and form a new fifteen person break.
Almost immediately another group formed off the front that I jumped into, this would be the winning move and contained Frank Spiteri (Marc Pro-Strava), JD Bergmann (Team Clif Bar), Christopher Harland-Dunaway (UC Davis Aggies/Davis Bike Club), and Jesse Moore (California Giant/Specialized).
I had been riding breaks all day and had no idea how strong or how much work the riders with me had done (aside from Moore who had been working all day for his teammates), all I knew was I didn't want to wait for a sprint against Bergmann and would have to attack before the line.
I toned down my pulls quite a bit, started playing a few games opening gaps to test everyone's strength, did a half-ass attack to test and see who would respond fastest, and with five miles to go I made my move.
I watched the group, they didn't seem to respond and the elastic broke. Eventually they started working together, but I had already put twenty seconds into them. I figured keeping my speed at twenty-nine/thirty would be the magic number and paced myself around that. Five miles later I had put more time into the chase group and had the win solo, with Brandt winning his group sprint for seventh.
