This race was slightly different from the Cat 3’s in that we did four 8.9 mile loops instead of five. Like Mark mentioned it was quite windy being a steady 15 mph northern wind.
Collin and I were feeling quite excited about kicking off the road season as both of us felt that we were in good race condition. Our race started off with an average to quick pace and it seemed like everyone wanted to get a feel for the course on the first lap because on the second and third laps there were many failed attempts for breaks. It seemed like one team after another wanted to take a shot at making a break but one after another they were quickly drawn back in. We were averaging a brisk 23.7 mph so anyone who was going to break needed to be able to solo quicker than that for some time. At the end of the third lap Colin and I started to talk tactics and decided that we had better head towards the front in case anyone tried to make any breaks that looked like they would stick. We stayed in the front 15 in the field to keep decent positioning and in the last 4-5 miles the pace started to really pick up staying around 28-30 and this continued and strung out the field and left about 15-20 of us off the front. At about 1.5 to go the pace slowed to about 25 and I thought that I may be able to make it because there were a few corners where the field really slowed down for the gravel. I got off the front about 50 meters but realized that I couldn’t hold that pace for long and decided it would be best to sit up and rejoin the field to catch a break before the end. At this point I wanted to use Mark’s tactics which would be to get off the front right before the final corner and sprint for it but I was blocked in and couldn’t get around until after the corner where I outsprinted about 4 guys to get 5th place. Colin finished with the strung out field.
