3.5 mile course with about 550 ft of gain with a kicker towards the end. I felt pretty good but my pacing may have been just a tad bit too high out of the gate as I lost my legs a bit on the final climb and was not climbing the 6-7% grade like I should. 10:25 - 19th Place 48 seconds off 1st.
Stage 2: ~62 mile RR
The Cat 3 race started just as the rain began to fall from the sky. A lot of early attacks on the rollers but nothing really stuck. At the 1st turnaround we had already dropped about 20 riders due to a pretty high pace and a few attacks up a 4mi ~4% climb. The pack was just cruising to the last turnaround which is located about 10mi from the finish. The last turnaround is on a 1km climb so the pack hit that short climb pretty hard and really strung out the group. That climb was immediately followed by another 1km climb which the lead group kept the pace very high. After those (2) climbs the lead pack was down to 30. There were (2) climbs left and I was a little discourages that the pack was still so large. These climbs were just not long enough to really break it up. I was still hoping to move up on GC so I put in a big attack on the second to last climb, but the people who could go with me were more interested in nullifying it than keeping it rolling. At that point one guy counterattacked and everyone was content to let it go. I rode the entire last 10mi near the front in good position staying out of trouble and with 1mi to go we hear ambulances and someone in a car yells at us to be careful because there is a crash at the finish. I decided to go for it on the last climb coming into the right before the finish. I thought it would be a better idea to be at the front if there truly was a lot of chaos at the finish due to an earlier crash. I died just before the turn and had to jump again onto another wheel and hope that person would drag me across the line. I got 10th in the bunch while the riders off the front stayed away by 25 seconds and 5 seconds. At the finish there were cones setup so that the riders would not run over the paramedics and women who crashed 15min earlier, So we had about a 3ft gap between the cones and the double yellow line so there was a bit of chaos on where to go and if the race was actually neutralized. Overall I was happy with the race, I raced smart early and put in some good digs to try to get something going. 12th Place
Stage 3: 50min Crit
Fun course for a modified parking lot Crit. The wind really picked up for our race so the climb was pretty brutal if you were on the inside line so everyone kept shifting over to get an echelon going and many ended up getting pinched at the narrow right had turn at the top of the climb. I found myself mid-pack with 4 laps to go so I started to move up on the climb and the back straight, but everyone at the front was fanning out and it was much harder to move up the earlier in the race. On the last lap I also managed to move up a bit, but just not enough. I was maybe 20th wheel going into the slightly off camber sweeper final turn to the finish when I hear pedals clipping and a riders going down, I took the turn really wide and scrubbed a little speed off in order to miss the crash. I managed to open up a decent sprint around the mess and grab 12th place again.
Overall GC:
17th place, 1min off 1st
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