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Snelling Pro, 1, 2

Originally posted by Brandon:

These were the first real P,1,2 field of the season for me, since the
Valley of the Sun Stage Race had a separate cat 2 field.
Mike joined in on the fun at the Snelling RR on Saturday,
which started with 115 riders. Or shall I say the neutral roll out started
with that many. The actual race started with a 30 man pile up! 15 seconds
after the official droped the flag.
Early season jitters, I guess.
With 15 or so riders splitting off the front immediately, Mike and I found
ourselves chasing way too early in this one. I knew it was going to be hard
from the gun as the course starts you off on a cross wind section and the
primary plan of attack for most of the big teams is to shed off as many
riders as possible... as soon as possible. Luckily I was able to get in
with the first group of chasers and made it up to the leaders about half
way through the first lap. Mike was also able to reintegrate after more
riders were able to pick up on the slack. Together we remained with the
lead group during a few attacks and the rest of lap 1. Not sure how many
riders were still chasing after the mess at the start. I'm assuming a good
grip of riders decided to not even attempt to continue the race after the
crash. Looked like we had about 40 or so riders left. The biggest team
representing in the lead group was, of course... Yahoo! w/9. Next was Cal
Giant with 5 riders, 3 Bissell riders (including Holloway and Mach), and a
couple other teams with a few riders. Unfortunately the American Lung Assoc.,
in it's debut RR event, only managed to get 1 of 7 riders into the mix.
At the begining of the 2nd lap... or was it the 3rd? We made the right onto
"Snake Alley". I call it this for a couple reasons. First, it is a section
that is in the cross wind and where an attack was made every lap. Stringing
the field out into a single file line of 40+ riders. Second, it sure took a
bite out of the field on the first strike! I saw Deuce after coming
out of the turn and told him to get ready for another attack. Once you get
in line, all you can do is make sure you don't go off the pavement on the
right and don't loose the wheel in front of you. It was also important to
react quickly if the rider in front of you was not able to hold wheels. At
the very moment there was a slowing of the pace, you had to take the
opportunity to leap frog into a better position. This is all I did for the
entire race. Constantly look to move up. Never "sit in". Once we hit the
feedzone hill I used my momentum to pass all the riders looking for a bottle
and move to the front 5 positions for that downhill right, then left into
the undulating section (same road as Merco). Unfortunately after that, I
never saw Deuce again. It was about 35 miles into the race when I was near
the front and during a slight lull I saw JD from Clifbar start to motor up
the side. I knew he was going to attack. I had the chance to go with, but
hesitated. No one else was really responding and I was thinking I didn't want
to spend the remaining 40 miles in a small break that wasn't represented by
either Yahoo or Cal Giant. Well, as JD + 2 started to open the gap, Yahoo
responded with one, then two. I was like this might be it. I need to prepare
to jump. The other yahoo riders started moving to the front. Danny Holloway
made his move to the break and just as I got out of the saddle to try and
catch his wheel, 2 Yahoo riders pulled off in front of me to close my door
and block the field. Forced me through a puddle and nearly off the road. I
recovered and then crossed to the other side and jumped out into the wind
for a bridge attempt but Yahoo was quickly on my wheel. Couple others tried
to jump across and I went again, but no luck. Yahoo successfully got 3 or 4
guys in the break so they were content to let it ride. It was a very good
display of team tactics. Helps when 1/5th of the field is on your team! Well
I certainly had to recover from that, as did many others, and the peloton
finally settled in to an easier pace. It was up to the smaller teams to chase
and there wasn't much firepower within. I was comfortable staying put for
a little. Over the next couple laps we would still see the effects of a hard
working breakaway as 3 riders were popped from it and got reabsorbed into our
group. There were 8 or 9 riders left up the road. We were 1 min 30sec behind.
By the last lap the gap went down only slightly. With about 6 miles left a
few riders attacked. I wasn't in position to respond immediately and to
tell the truth I was just hoping other riders would chase them down. I guess
everyone else had the same idea 'cause the field pretty much watched them go.
We finally hit the last, really rough, section before the finish and there
was about 30-35 riders left in peloton. With 2k to go the remaining 3 CalGiant
riders lead it out. I jumped on their little train and tried to hold position.
Got bumped back a couple spots before the last turn, but was still in the top
6 going into the sprint. Pretty much held it there to the line. Good for 19th.
Felt really good about the top 20 finish here. Looks like all the training is
starting to pay off!

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