This year I decided that I'd prefer racing with teammates and was able to guest ride for Team Oregon. I got up all bright and early on Friday and Eric Gushurst was nice enough to pick up me, my two bikes, 2.5 wheelsets and red monster suitcase. Going over to the race with Eric and Chris Dubois put me in a good mood with the near-constant bike race talking and wisecracking from those two. Oh and watching the tdf on Jorge's phone was an added bonus.
Cascade Lakes
The plan for the race was for someone to get in the early break and then Chris and Eric and I would help Dillon get in a good spot for the final climb. Oh and Scott Gray and Adam Artner would just be out playing bikes with us too. So to start things off we all flew down the Sunriver cutoff and then turned right onto FS Road 40/Upper Deschutes. Then of course the breakaways started and eventually Andrew Boone was off the front.
Then it was time to wait. The next somewhat exciting thing to happen was perhaps the first stupid crash of the weekend which happened at the feed zone. A little later I then dropped my chain and pulled over to fix it. I didn't really notice, but apparently as I was standing on the side and as I leaned down to fix my chain I swung one of my legs directly into the peleton and nearly caused a few crashes.
Anywho I caught on after the chain drop and then made sure I was towards the front to cover any breakaway attempts that may happen before we got to the hill. We could still see a few guys from the break up there but nobody really wanted to give it a go. So as we approached the final climb I was trying to get Dillon to get to the front and was looking back to make sure he was on my wheel, but he didn't quite make it on my wheel for some reason. So I did make it to the front and figured I'd just sit on the lead group and wait for Dillon to get up there too.
As we went up the hill suddenly it was just 6 of us as I glanced back. I knew this was the move, but I also knew that it's nearly impossible for anyone to bridge to that move so I just sat in expecting to get dropped shortly. I was pegged at my top end the whole way up the hill, but once we made it past the final steep section I knew I had made the selection. I didn't do any work until we got to the parking lot road where I sat on Max O'Neal's wheel. Max covered two gnarly attacks from this kid (hot tubes I think) and then made his own move at 200m. I waited a little more, but once I heard a guy yelling out "right! right!" I knew he was going for the sprint so I took the long way around the left but it ended up that I had enough speed to get the win.
After the race we drove over to Dillon's soon to be new neighborhood and had dinner at the clubhouse. Spaghetti and fruit and good scenery.
High Desert TT
I really don't have much to say about the TT except that I was pleased that despite my lack of practice, etc that I managed to get a good enough time to keep me in 3rd GC. Actually I was thinking about sprinting for the line on the final straight but didn't and in the end the winner of the TT got a time good enough to get 1 second ahead of me in GC, so note to self: always sprint for the line in a TT.Crit
Since I was 3rd GC and there were no intermediate time bonuses this was a 40 minute trial of avoiding crashes for me. I sat in and numerous times had to brake fairly hard because of either a real crash but quite often an almost-crash which was causing almost-crashes behind me. Sorry! Our team plan was for Adam Artner to win, but he went too early and was a little hard on himself after the race. He later consoled himself with some avocados and yams (inside joke).
Awbrey Butte
Going into Awbrey Butte our team had a plan to not let a break get away too far and then attack on the way up and through Awbrey Butte on the 3rd lap and then maybe Dillon could get away and place better. The parts of making it a hard race sounded good to me.When the race started there was yet another crash at mile 2 that I actually got tangled up in. I narrowly avoid I think Max O'Neal who was on the pavement and then my front wheel got stuck in someone in front of me and I skidded to a stop somehow remaining upright the whole time. I checked my wheels and noticed that the front wheel was just a little out of true so I released my brake pads a bit and decided to go chase without a wheel change.
I caught up fairly quickly and I think I noticed Andrew Boone get in the break yet again so it was time to wait. We went through the feed zone grabbing these neutral water bottles that were only useful for pouring on your back as the caps made you choke when you tried to drink it. Then we got neutralized twice as the Masters 1/2 passed us twice. Then the break's 4 minute advantage suddenly went to 0 minutes as we approached the climb on lap 3 - weird, but game on!
Scott Gray starting hammering up the hill and we dropped a fair amount of people, but Kaler Marshal and Ben Thompson were still up there. The 4th time around our team was planning on keeping the pace tough. Eric told me he wasn't sure how much more oomph he had and so I asked him, "so how about you string it out right now!" And he did! And then he took a wrong turn. And then I spoke with Adam and told him I wanted him to come one a breakaway attempt with me on the backstretch. However, Dillon was already in a favorable position so he found himself in a break which looked pretty good. Adam then countered a few moves and I hung out with the GC leaders.
The final time up Archie Briggs we caught that breakaway that Dillon was in and then it was gruppo clusterfracko. I was sandwiched at one point between Dwayne Farr and Brian Hitchcock and was making contact with both of them until I decided to relinquish my not-a-spot. We headed through the roundabout and then I was on Dillon's wheel but then I somehow ended up on the right and was on Adam's wheel.
With 50 meters before the final roundabout Adam punched it into the inside of the corner which was a dangerous move even with us riding thru the roundabout beforehand to know that the inside was clean of any obstacles. I hesitated and couldn't follow Adam's wheel but also took the inside hard. Adam then opened up his sprint and completely crushed it while I sprinted for a top 10 after hearing the final gnarly crash of the weekend happening to the rear left of me.
It was then a tense few minutes afterwards as I surveyed the carnage that HSP went through over the weekend but also as I awaited results to see if I kept my 3rd overall GC. One of the GC contenders got 3rd, but it was barely not enough time bonus that I kept the podium spot. Adam really saved it for me by winning the 10 second time bonus.
After all that we headed home and made wisecracks the whole way back about bike racing, over-protective cops in the town of Mill City and whatever else passed the time. Aside from all the crashes this was the funnest weekend of bike racing I had had the whole year, not to mention the best result too. Having teammates along the likes of those I had over the weekend put me in a great mood which had to have contributed towards my success.
Two more important things worth noting:
1. After 3 years of Randy's domination, I have finally won the Tacoma mini-league in Tour de France fantasy!
2. I have yet to receive my prize money in the mail, but when I do I will be sure to split it up.
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