And now the past few races have been sort of leading toward that direction. I performed just ok at Cascade was feeling a little maxed out at the Franz Bakery Crit last week. This week I had a strong lineup of races, Portland Twilight, OBRA Crit and OBRA TT.
But first, PIR
As the season goes on, the races here have seemed to get faster and harder to make a break happen. The highlight of my race was when I tried to follow Tuckerman's wheel when he attacked hard. I knew he was going to explode with that break attempt, but I was sad I couldn't at least follow it. In the field sprint I should have just followed Eddie, but let that wheel get away.
Portland Twilight Criterium
Now I dunno, but when Klipper called me up on Thursday night and told me that my goal was to not crash, I thought that was a lame goal. I knew the race was going to be fast, but I thought I was fast and after blaring some techno before the race I was feeling pumped. I made the mistake of riding a warmup lap once the course opened and found myself much further back than I wanted to be. After the call-ups, I sprinted to get a spot in the 3rd row for the start, but really wish I had done better about lining up.
Once the race started it was strung out for the entire race. I was barely holding wheels the entire race, but I wasn't moving back too much staying pretty much 20th-30th the whole race. The whole race I was in the drops sprinting to hold wheels. With 10 laps to go I was the back of the field. The photo below sums it up:
Photo credit to SmugMug user stoneandsteelI finished 21st after making a lousy sprint against the giver-upers at the very back. I didn't once get to the front of the race and that was that. I was disappointed that I couldn't do better.
OBRA Crit Champs
Off to Bend which I swear I'm now calling Bad Luck Bend! I thought maybe I'd warmup a little harder to feel fresh for races by doing a quick Archie Briggs climb. That got up my heart rate and I was feeling pretty good at the start of the race doing a few attacks off the front. However, it became apparent that a monster was among us. This kid broke away about halfway through and was holding an insane pace all by himself. But then he started coming back to the field and it was game on again. But then I saw him getting ready to get back in from the pit and knew he had a flat and was about to crush us again. And he did and when he and two other guys broke away I hammered on the front trying to do something to bring it back, but it seemed that none of us had the legs in us to chase him down. He broke away from the other two guys and he was gone. And then I was just struggling to get a good field position again. And then out of nowhere I got a flat on my front wheel in the middle of corner 2 and went down on my right side. And that was the race. I didn't feel like doing the TT the next day so that was my week.
I'm pretty sure I'm pretty tired after this whole season. Combine that with losing a bunch of blood and I was feeling quite tired Sunday. There is the potential for negative thoughts to enter my mind and I've got to fight that and remain positive not only for the last few races of the season, but more importantly for the upcoming dating season. However, this year the extra support from more bicycling friends I have made and above all else my teammates has made it much easier to bear. Hearing the random voices yelling "EVAN MOVE UP!!" 30 minutes into Portland Twilight and then "ALL RIGHT EVAN HANG IN THERE GOOD JOB!!" once they realized I was so tired helps me finish the race. Every race has been salvaged by Eddie or Rocky getting Top Ten or better, by hanging out after the races and all of us taking care of each other.
It looks like the Giro di Portland and Eugene are going to be the last races on my calendar. Almost there!
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