A few firsts, but no win

Today was my first race in the rain of the season, it was the first broken chain ever, and my first and hopefully last crash of the season(seperate incidence). The course was a 6 corner lap with only a small bump between turns 1 and 2. There were painted lines in all of the turns and quite a few manhole covers over the course.

The field was good with 11 BMC guys, a Healthnet rider, Symetrics rider and 3 guys from my team along with all of the Nor-Cal 1’s and 2’s. In all it was about 80 riders of 110 that had signed up for the race but only about 30 finished.

I started with a bad start and ended up close to the back and had to work my way to the front for the first 10-15 minutes. Then after 20 minutes there was a big split because of a crash in turn 1 about 20 riders back from the front. Then later that lap my chain breaks accellerating out of the last turn and I was skiding on my cleats siting on the top tube all the way to the pits. I got back in the next lap on my teamate Jamiel’s bike(who wasn’t racing), I was losing 6 bike lengths every turn and after a lap I was at the back of the group and struglingto keep contact. Then, trying to stay close I took a turn too fast for the training tires to handle and ran into a driveway that was blocked by a banner and I got closelined and hi-sided into some very gravely asphalt.

Again it was too the pits. This time I changed to the wheels that had been I my bike and was again in the group, but now with some good road rash on my ass and back so it hurt a little. Also, since I was riding Jamiel’s bike I was too low and my quads were getting really  tired whenever I was on the front so  I sat back till the last 10 laps.

In the last 10 laps a BMC rider was away with 15-20 seconds so Dom waved to go help Skyler bring him back. I went to the front with 7 laps to go and pulled for 3 laps and brought the gap to 7-8 seconds. Then Roman of Healthnet took over and slowed the chase so the group wouldn’t catch to early and I sliped back to rest.

On the last lap I was leading out Dom, but in turn 2 the guy in front of me opened a 2-3 length gap to the front 5. I sprinted to get in front but couldn’t get there with the gap, so I was shut down in the final 4 back, to back, to back, to back turns. in the last turn somone in front let a big gap open and I let Dom up the inside of me in the final turn but he was shut down by the guy off the front who was getting caught. He got 10th, I got 5th and Skyler was 23rd.

Hopefully I can sleep tonight with the road rash and I’ll be racing Cherry Pie tomarrow. Yummy a cherry pie to the top 3.

-Cody