Made my way out to TTown for the first of a series of UCI races over the next couple of weeks held there. The field was exceptional headlined by Bobby Lea as well as many international riders (Italy, New Zealand, Canada off the top of my head). The UCI Scratch race was intense but a great learning experience. First, 95 gear inches isn't enough - plain and simple. Second, which is something I should have played better, but, conserve your energy more - there are a lot of guys in that race that get paid to do what they do - it's on them to bring the race back when a move goes up the road. Several times I put in decent digs to inject pace to bring back little moves that I had a bit of panic about. There was a 4 lap sequence in the middle of the race where I legitimitely was spinning out of my 51x14 (180 avg hr, 113 avg cadence, 34.0mph during that stretch). I'm fairly certain thats the longest time I've been above 180 this year and to put that gear in perspective, usually it has to be a super fast race at northbrook for me to put that kind of gear on...it simply wasn't enough yesterday. I ended up finishing in the 2nd group as 11 guys got up the road. Although it sucks that I came home empty handed points-wise, it was such a cool experience and I'll come into next week more prepared (as well as hopefully less under-the-weather).
There were two more races during the night with the same field - A devil's scratch (MNO until 12 riders left, then 5 lap scratch) and a 3km scratch race. I ended up surviving the MNO portion and finishing 9th in the Devil's Scratch. Doing MNO's on a track like that is so much nicer than Northbrook - I feel like if nothing else you know they're going to call out the right person. The last race of the night was a 3k scratch race. I tried to maintain position and move my way up as much as possible (which isn't really possible). I followed what wheels futilely tried to move up on the outside until they died and the next came around. I swear the sprint started at about the 1.5 to go mark and whoever could just power through the long effort survived it. I ended up finishing 5th which I was pretty pleased about. Expectations change quickly when you know what you're up against.
Looking forward to coming back out next week!
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