Two Wheel Blogs

Saturday night, Hermann Under the Lights, while not a peak performance from a racing standpoint it's THE race to race in our short cross season. Oddly enough, the event is only in it's second year and it's at the top on the pleasure and pain meter. Jeff Yielding does it up right with his course layouts and his treatment of the racers and spectators. Plenty of great places to watch the race unfold with no shortage of tactical elements for the racers. Toss in the fact that it's under the lights and you've got a killer P-A-R-T-Y!

After my warm-ups, I talked with Justin Allen about a strategy for my race. I had every intention of getting the hole shot, trying to establish an early lead into the twisty sections, and then settling into a TT mentality for the remainder of the race. We felt the deciding factors would be the bottleneck at the stairs and the 180 degree corner on the backside of the outfield leading into the technical section of the course. Therefore, keep your nose out of trouble and all should be good.

I immediately lit the jets on the start. I really don't know how far out in front I was, but I know how I wanted to run the first lap and it seemed right. As I came back to start finish, I was starting to ease back on the throttle ever so slightly. As I approached the stairs, I could hear our leopard-print bathrobe clad announcer, Aaro Froese, calling out riders, as in plural, so I knew I company. No big problem, just keep rolling. It turns out I had 2 riders with me and as we headed down to the 180 turn I thought 3 in a break is great so let's do this. We turn into the 180 and BOOM, one rider down. Two riders down and falling my way. Three riders down. WHAT JUST HAPPENED!

In the blink of an eye, chaos. I'm on the ground, my right shifter is turned inward and my rear derailleur looks bent. Total shock and panic sets in. I'm looking back and I see Matt Struckman and 1-2 others licking their chops and closing the gap quickly. I can't believe this is happening. Poof, my lead has evaporated and I was now forced to attack. Not good.

Luckily, the bike was shifting fine, but I was out of sorts. This wasn't in my game plan. I didn't know what to do and Matt and the others smelled blood and began riding harder. I felt like I was attacked in a dark alley and everyone was throwing punches. I'm sure everyone knew I was hurting badly, but sure as hell didn't want to confirm their thoughts so I tried to hold every wheel I could. Unfortunately, I burned a lot of matches and the fire was dying out. Matt tried to keep our chase group working as a group announcing, "it's about to be a 5 man party and we're not going to be invited" but it didn't seem to help. Struckman trained for the Leadville 100 race this year and he's like trying to ride with a freight train at times. He carves corners effortlessly and puts down mean power on demand. Thanks for the motivation Matt, but be my guest. Attack at will, brother.

As it turned out, 3 riders from The Hub had taken control of the front of the race and last week's winner, Andy Hamilton, was solidly in 4th. Karl King, from my new Mesa Cycles team, made a late race charge and worked up to 5th, while Matt, Mike Briner, and another rider battled for the remainder of the top 10 places. In the end, I just couldn't reel in Matt. His teammate, Mike, was bound and determined to push me into 9th. However, I was able to light one final match and literally beat him at the line by less than a foot for 8th place.

Admittedly, I said before the race that I would be happy with a top 10 and really pleased if I cracked the top 5, as this week's race was a larger field and included some faster guys. Looking back, it would have been nice to see what would have happened without the pile-up in the turn, but that's racing. If I'm going to ride off the front, then I need to learn how to ride with a target on my back. Congratulations to The Hub riders, Robert, Rock, and Eric. You guys rocked it!

Thanks again to Jeff and the Hermann crew for the race. Totally pro and much appreciated. I'm a lifer for your races and look forward to State in December.