It was a 53 mile bike race with 4500 vertical feet of climbing, so definitely on the hillier side for a road race.
My objective of the day was not just to win, but to win in a certain way, by breaking away late in the race after saving energy riding in the peloton (main group), and practicing bike handling skills.
I accomplished half of my objective by winning, but I got too excited and broke away after only 14 miles, and rode for the remaining 40 with only one other rider, also named Eric. It was an interesting breakaway, because neither of us really attacked, we just happened to open up a gap on a climb when a weaker rider ran out of energy and the riders behind him were slow to react. We quickly realized what had happened, and Eric shouted "lets go!" Eric turned out to be an awesome guy, strong on the bike, and it was a pleasure to work with him. I also noticed he was riding for Soraz racing team, which has a relationship with Athletes Lounge, my main sponsor, so we stuck together as long as our legs would allow, on to fight the good, but often losing fight of those in a breakaway.
At first, the group gave chase, and it looked like we would stay away for only a short time, but after a few miles of a very strong effort on our part, their intensity lessened, and we began to pull further and further away. By mile 30 we had 1:40sec gap and there was only a group of 6 riders chasing. The rest of the field had broken apart due to the fast pace, and it looked like we had the top of the podium in the bag.
As much as I was suffering, Eric had it worse, due to aggressive riding prior to our breakaway, (this guy was a beast!) and around mile 43, he was unable to hold the pace any longer and it was up to me to take all of our hard work to the finish line. I hoped that he would be able to hold on to his second place position, but the 2 minute gap we had built up would prove to be about 10 seconds short of what was needed, and he was caught at the line by the two remaining riders behind us. I ended up crossing the line 4 minutes ahead of them, after increasing my lead by 2 minutes in the last 10 miles.
I'm extremely happy with my result, winning is always fun, but as I said earlier, the goal of the race was to experience the large group of riders for as long as possible before making my move. So for next time, I will have to be more patient and attack with maybe 10 miles to go, which will make for a more exciting race, as well as a better simulation of the draft-legal triathlon format. I had a blast meeting and riding with Eric, as well as several other guys I talked to during and after the race. Thanks to OBRA for putting on quality events such as this.
Good times! thanks for reading :)
