See this? This is me dishing out the pain on "the snake." Mike Moritz was kind enough to catch me ripping up the hill (I mean, its kind of hard to miss me, Im huge and obeeeeese). Seeing good 'ole Bryan in the picture means that I must've worked my way up to the front, which I guess is quite the task considering I started in the last row...87th position or some crap like that. I continued my assualt up the course and eventually made my way up to the very, very front. I rode almost half the race in either first, second, or third position. It was great - I could feel the snake alley victory within my chubby fingers. I could go with the skinny dudes up the hill, and then with gravity on my side, I could pull away on the downhill. I had the plan, the last lap I was just going to keep contact up the hill, and once we were on pavement again, I was going to let the fat take over and ride off into the throngs of people for my biggest victory yet. Right before the penultimate time up the snake, though, fate threw a large stick into my wheels. The stick didn't break any spokes, though, it gave me a flat tire. Damn. So, I'm standing at the bottom of the hill yelling for a wheel, anything, as the 2 leaders ride way from me. Im screeeaaaming for a wheel, eyeing the dude with zipps next to me, eyeing the open pro to the left of him, anything! Then, out of no where, Nick comes running with his bike! "Take my bike dude" he yelled. I told him to switch the wheels (since I was afraid i was going to trash it on a downhill...i know, im so lammmee). After a super quick wheel change (the whole thing mightve taken 30 seconds) im back and riding. By this point, though, I had dropped to maybe 8th or 9th position. I pick up Bryan on my next lap and I ride in after he blows by me in the sprint. 7th or 8th...whatever I got there, totally not bad, at all. But soooooooo close to awesomeness.....It just all came spiraling downward so fast...and then I cried, a lot. Ok, no I didn't, but you couldn't blame me if i did, could you?Anyway, I've been crazy busy the past two months with riding and working and schooling and everything. Hit up a lot of collegiate races - I would've thrown down some race reports if anything interesting happened, but the only interesting this is that I got dropped from every road race and I was off the front of every crit for about 15 minutes in a very promising move, only to get reeled in at the end and place somewhere in the back. The college races were tough this year, 40-60 guys every race, super fast, and little recovery. It was balls to the wall for almost the entire race. There were some good dudes in those races, and while it sucks to get dropped, it can only help racing against the quality of people I raced with this spring. It can only make a guy better. I was probably more excited to watch Jenn race and do well (she's this close to getting a win, I can feel it), and watch Nate and a few of the other guys on the team get better throughout the season.
Im stoked for Iowa City this weekend. I'll be rocking the 1/2 race, so hopefully some good things will come of that. I'll be rocking a new team, which I'm super stoked about. I can't wait to race with all the guys from B2u/WOB - we look sweet, which is by far the most important thing, and we should be putting up some W's this year. Maybe Ill post something afterwards...you know, sooner than two months after this post.
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