Clear Lake BBQ Weekend Races

So I was able to get my bike fixed last week by the guys at Halls. Thanks so much to Karl/Steve and the gang for all they do! Raced at the Oval on Tuesday and had some good results, opening up the legs for the weekend.

Drove over to Clear Lake on Saturday morning and met my dad at the AmericInn. He had gone over on Friday to see some of the Blues music going on downtown. We went to the "Other Place" for lunch. Had a good spaghetti dinner and then we drove out to the Buddy Holly memorial site. Then we went and relaxed for the afternoon and then headed down to Clear Lake city park for the crit. Saw some of the other fast guys in the Iowa and Wisconsin scene. Lined up for the 50 minute race. Right from the guy the pace was very fast and it never really slowed down from there. Derrek Cassady and Jerome through down some attacks. I followed and had a couple of my own. We shed most of the Cat 4's but most of Cat 3's weren't dropped. I was surprised at the speed of our race. I didn't see my heart rate under 185 for most of the race, most of the time being 190 or so. Didn't get where I needed to be for the finish and only managed 6th.
After this I lined up Cat 1,2,3 race. Again started out just as fast with B2U sending off numerous attacks and Paul having his own and chasing others. Pretty uneventful, I was behind Tim Campell when he flatted going into a corner, and got gapped. I fell off the pace and couldn;t get back on. Ended with a DNF. After the races, wen to Cancun mexican restaurant with Paul.

Sunday, got up and had a great breakfast at the hotel. 2 years ago at this race, I didn't eat much for a 40miler and bonked, so I knew 82 miles would require big intake of food. Got to the Surf Ballroom and got all ready to go for the 10AM start. We started out North of the "Lake" and the finish was on the Southern end after 3h45min of racing. A couple hard crosswind sections, headwinds and a lot of tailwind on the road home. 2 B2U, 1 All9 and 1 Rassy's got into the break, so Paul, Jeff Barnes and Adam Price set tempo for the first half of the race. They let the gap go to 2 minutes and then let off through the feed zone. This is where All9 picked up the pace as their member in the break was only a Cat 3 (Steve Robinson). We caught the break after a hard chase after about 60-65 miles. They road awesome!
Guys started to fall off the pace in the cross-tail wind and tail wind sections. Tim Campbell put in a great attack with 15 miles to go or so and looked to be staying away. We turned onto the finishing 3 mile stretch of road and the games started. Tim came back at about 500m to go. I tried to follow Lou Waugaman and the Rassy guys. Ended up coming in 5th overall and 2nd in Cat 3's. Rich Winse(Rassy), a Cat 3, actually won the race.

I loved the distance and know the long/hard weeks riding with Novian, Garrett, Sarge, Justin really helped my results here!!!

Next up I think is State Road Race and then Tour of Kansas City with Bethany!!!