Leadout Racing

I managed to snag the rare Saturday off of work this past weekend and decided the best way to spend it would be to get a few spring training races in.  With Saturday and Sunday events on the east side of the state I loaded up the car headed to Ann Arbor after work on Friday.  Saturday morning brought sunny skies, but an otherwise chilly and windy morning.  The Waterford race track is roughly a 1.5 mile course with a fair amount of twists and turns and a slight rise that isn’t quite a hill.  After the opening skirmishes I found myself in a break of 7 that dwindled to 5 by the end of the race.  We cut it close but managed to stay away.  I unfortunately had cooked myself prior to the sprint and ended up 5th out of the 5 of us that stayed in front of the chase group.  I was fortunate enough to meet breakmate and 29er crew teammate Tim Finkel who wrote a race report here.  Sunday felt much more like a crit with a .7 mile course and nice little rise to the finish and some fast corners.  I was joined by Mark and Blair, although Blair was dressed as a Priority Health rider.  There were a lot of fast guys in the field and right from the gun Dan Klein attacked and stayed on the attack  for several laps with an ever evolving cast of riders in failed breakaways.  I stayed on or off the front for the majority of the race probably working a bit more than I should of.  Despite our efforts no breaks stuck, although I did get to spend a few laps in a break with Frankie Andreu.  In the end it came down to a bunch sprint with Blair coming in 5th as I almost caught him at the line and ended up 7th, and of course Frankie won.  Overall a great weekend of racing and riding.

-GBK