Rainy Lawrence
After returning from Bend, I jumped in the car and headed north for the Tour of Lawrence crits. My travel companion was my younger brother, Shane, and we opted to stay with our Grandma in Oklahoma on Friday rather than race the street sprints. We showed up in Lawrence on Saturday shortly before the rain, which laid a nice coat of moisture on the course as we rolled to the start line. I was racing on my old bike, as my race bike was still en route to Bicycle Sport Shop after nationals to get fixed up.
We went hard from the gun, paying little heed to the slick course. One mile into the 4-mile loop, there had already been 3 pack-splitting crashes. I was in a full sprint out of each turn to make it to the lead group, which was less than half of the 70 starters after just one lap. That continued to get whittled down to a final selection of about 15 after several laps of sprinting out of every turn, with only Tradewind Energy and THSJ having 2 riders in the group. I could motor up the longer climbs at a hard pace, but was having a hard time following the accelerations. Andrew Dahlheim of Metro-VW was very aggressive all day, and with 2 laps to go I finally couldn’t hang on to the attack and ended up in the chase group with Stefan Rothe of THSJ. I finished 11th in the race, Dahlheim won, and only 28 riders total even finished!
The next day was a figure 8 crit, and the storms rolled in just in time for our race (again). I was in a couple moves throughout the race, and felt pretty good. No break ever got very far up the road; it would be coming down to a field sprint. San Jose set up the leadout with 5 laps to go, and everybody seemed content to let them control it. For the first time this year (maybe ever?) I did an awesome job of staying at the front of the field at the end. With a very technical course in the rain, I knew my best chance was to not let it come to a sprint. I rolled by the green train with 1.5 laps to go, and amid cries of ‘keep it steady’ Stefan Rothe jumped onto my wheel as I sailed way too hot into the turn but held on. The rain really let loose in a torrent and it was becoming difficult to see.
1 lap to go, the field in hot pursuit
I kept the throttle pinned with Stefan behind me and the pack dangling through the back half of the course, and going through start/finish for 1 to go I had a 4-5 second lead, with Stefan sitting on to take the sprint in the event I held off the charging field. It was starting to hurt at this point…. Half a lap more I stayed off before the single file pack caught me; I managed to grab onto the train in 10th, and held on for 10th at the end. Disappointed I didn’t do better, but glad I took the tactical risk. If one person would’ve come with my attack and worked, I’m certain we could have held on to the end. Josh Carter of THSJ delivered the win, and shortly thereafter the start/finish area was under 4” of water….