State Center Road Race

Have been stiff the last couple days after the crashes, but legs have been feeling good, even when on the bike. Made the quick drive over to Bangor, Iowa this morning for the 60 mile Cat 1/2 road race. Got all signed in and numbered up, and was good to see Lou, Paul and Duey.

Lined up for the race, and was not fun to see Zealous with 10 riders on the start line. Adam Price, Duey and I from Mercy, Paul and Lou from Velosport and a handful of other single riders. We started out fast, with Zealous insisting on getting someone off the front. Adam and I went to work making sure that a Zealous guy wasn't to far off the front, riding tempo. Lou got into a break with Lou up the road and this wasn't a bad thing, so we just sat there and sent a tempo that would keep them less than 1.5 minutes. Lou dropped Kurt, and this made Zealous chase hard which helped us out, we were able to take a back seat. Once Lou was brought in, nothing stuff for the rest of the 2nd lap, but at the finish line ( a 500m jaunt up a grinding hill, Duey put in a nice acceleration) which broke the field. I was caught a little out and was able to latch onto Lou and Derek Cassidy to make sure we didn't get dropped. In the crosswind section, Duey launched a nice attack and brought out Lane Anderson and Brian West, these three got up the road and Adam and I were set to sit there. Zealous didn't seem to like this and would try sending guys up the road to bring it back. They were never able to do this, so I just sat in the field and waited for the end.

Coming into the finish, Zealous were trying to set up Jared Osterloh for the sprint, which worked well...he did get 4th I believe. I blew up on the final climb along with many others, and rolled across to hear that Duey won! Nice job Duey and Mercy Specialized for finally getting into the podium that was held captive by Zealous this weekend.

Just relaxing now, and getting ready for next weekend in Cedar Rapids. Excited to race there as I had to miss last year. Good job to everyone in the race for making it a good day to race!

Happy Fathers Day Dad! I love you!