JMSR Saturday Road Race

The Saturday road race was a three lap circuit that totaled 86 miles and contained a good short climb each time. The route had more elevation gain than the 110 mile road race and certainly proved to be a more difficult course - as one of my teammates put it 'it's a course that feels like you're always going up'. Climbing is not something I generally have done well.

After yesterday, my hopes were a little higher that I could potentially hold on, but I still was going to approach it with the same mindset - don't get time cut and hold on as long as possible. The group hit the first climb together and it was certainly tough, but doable. We hit the feedzone at the top of the first peak of the climb (the climb was a good steep climb, crest w/ feed zone, slight descent, and then longer steadier climb for a little while until it crested) and everyone, per usual, seemed to start ramping the pace up making getting a feed chaotic. After my experience yesterday and at Boulder-Roubaix at feeds, I was done getting caught out at this point and made a point to make sure I was moving up through the feeds. I heard a lot of people had to do some chasing to catch back on, so yeah...

The 2nd lap climb came and all of the sudden it seemed like people were hurting (as was I). One of my former teammates who was there (and is really strong) was moving up the left side. I quickly sprung on his wheel and just tried to relax while ascending it - mentally, I was just trying to act like it's just me and him on a group ride (not in a 1-2 national level race going up a hill - a place I don't have much business being). He cruised up the hill, and with me in tow, we ended up passing dozens of people which certainly gave me some confidence. This was a point where many people ended up getting popped and where even a few riders who I expected to be far stronger than me actually pulled out of the race. I made it to the top again and focused on trying to recover for the next 15 miles.

The 3rd lap climb came and it seemed a little neutral at the beginning and then the attacks came. Even with a slow start we ended up ascending the climb much faster than the other laps. Uneventfully, I made it to the top.

There was a break that went off earlier in the day that was a minute forty up the road. This would have shattered our GC man's (Taylor's) hopes of a good overall finish. Although gassed after the climbs, we needed to organize a chase and inject a little pace into the race in hopes of bringing the group back. O'Boyle came by me yelling that we organize a chase. We found Austin as well and moved our way up front for some digs. After a few rotations, the Hincapie team were lined up on our wheels putting in some good pulls and helping bring back the chase. Eventually we had the breakaway in sight and reeled them in with 10 miles or so to go.

With 6 to go there was a big wreck, I hadn't seen O'Boyle much after that so I assumed he got collected.

I was trying to figure out where the finish was, but was mostly happy to know that I was going to certainly finish with the leaders time again today as there was nothing else challenging about the route towards the finish. We made a right hand turn and low-and-behold, the finish line was 200 meters away. Completely unaware that the finish was so close I launched a sprint and ended up finishing 18th on the day. Another complete shocker of a result. We ended up with 3 top 20 finishes on the day as a team which was incredible. Just as shocking was how hard the course was on the field. Many riders who I expected to make it through the day had a lot of time put into them. It still seems like I shouldn't have been in that group, but it's nice to know the massive amount of training is certainly paying off. O'Boyle ended up being in the wreck and rolled through the line 5 minutes after the leaders did, ruining his chances of a good GC finish - at this point we were just hoping he and his bike were okay for the next day.

Anyways, it was another good day on the bike that moved me from the 60's into the 40's on GC, still 2:03 back of the leader.