Mississippi on my mind.

So I have been found guilty of neglecting my blog. I have basically been up to the same ole same ole. I have finally found some descent racing legs. They refused to come out of hiding in Saturdays Crit in the Fondren District of Jackson, MS. However, on Sunday during the Tour Le Fluer Road Race I felt pretty damn good.

The Road Race started off abnormally with us catching the lead motorcycle in the first Kilometer. He was a little busy chatting it up with the other official and was not paying attention. When we ran up on him and started yelling this guy floored his bike. Some how his rear wheel jumped up shot off to the right of the pavement onto the gravel kicked up dust and burned rubber to avoid an accident.

That was the first 1 Kilo. Shortly there after myself and one guy from Memphis Motorwerks attacked the group and gapped them pretty righteous. I wanted to keep on rolling but I knew that Herring Gas did not have any teammates with us so it was a Suicide Mission that I cared to not take part of. After 5-8 miles I sat up and reintegrated the group.

The Second lap and the legs started to feel good. There was a group off the front that appeared to have a herring gas rider, one Memphis Motorwerks and one NOBC guy up the road putting in a serious effort. However, my team Raising Canes had none. So I launched off the front of the group into what I refer to as nomans land. I was trying to cruise across the gap at well over 30 and just as I was about to make contact with them they increased there effort and I did not have a wheel to latch on to. So back to the groups. Back to Troy verbally ass ulting me for giving up. Well there were a few reasons that I choose that route. One: Herring was not in the breakaway. Two: My Legs were Dead. Three: I may have made it to the group but then I would have completely imploded and destroyed all my chances.

The third lap was preceded by a nasty attack by Rialdo from NOBC. The prior day I think he won the Crit. His attack was in the feed zone and I had no one to feed me anyway. My legs were shot I was dehydrated and really tired from trying to keep up with these guys. Some how I stole a bottle from my team mates Tracy Martin that held me over for a sec. The as we passed through the start finish line Memphis launched another attack. I wasn't to hip to this one but his teammate decided to bridge right in front of me. So I grabbed his wheel and went to work. I already had a teammate in Jerry Simon up the road and so in our little break were Two Memphis guys, Jerry and Myself from Canes, Sam Rieden from Pro Bike and Sebastian Alvereze from Tiger Cycling. We put in a serious effort. My legs hurt so badly but I pulled through as much as possible. The guys in this break were really working hard together to try and catch a small group of 3 guys up from us that we had all forgotten about. So I am completely out of H2O and Energy Gel. 13 miles later and a small group of breakaway artist catch up to us. However, they bring with them some extra baggage. So to get rid of the extra refuse we pull hard to drop any guys from that group that were not having a good day. We shell ~ 1/2 of the group that had just bridged up to us. However, the main peleton had organized and were chasing us hard. At about this moment I cracked. My legs had given more than they ever had in any road race. I was out of gel and out of water. So the group I had worked so hard to establish gently cruised away from me on a hill. Shortly there after the main group came dashing by. Or should I say the fractured remnants of that once large group. The guys had chased us so hard that they dropped over half of the group. I tried to latch on. I really did but I did not have enough. Somehow, I stole a bottle full O H2O from a Memphis guy and kept ticking the pedals over. This was followed by a pseudo hard chase in which a group of ~12 of us worked together.

We cruised to the finish and in the final straight Jason Hamm of La Sport launched a sprint from HELL. This guy and his teammate gapped our group really fast. I some how latched onto his wheel but with 100 M to go I found some legs and started to go around him. I am sure I caught him off guard. That said, I kept pushing the gear and was ticking over my 53-12 very efficiently and had a few bike length gap on him over the line.

So what did I learn from this weekend of racing? Ride Hard Ride Fast and it might be painful but it will be over in a couple hours.

LAE.
And Keep the Rubber Side Down,

Jr