Today Marco, Luca Brasi (Dave Chambers) and I lined up for the Masters race in Yellow Springs. Conspicuously absent today was Cadillac George who was in Michigan living La Vida Loco at a wedding (George, is champagne part of your training plan?). We had a great day for racing with sunny skies and temps in the low 50's. It was nice to only need knee and arm warmers today.
First time up the "Devil's backbone" climb I found myself unexpectedly in an early break with another rider and we rode together for about 5-6 miles. This guy was F-A-S-T and I wasn't able to stay with him. He rode away and was never seen again. After spending a few miles in no man's land I was able to join up with Marco, Dave, Scott Young and Rick Toler who had gotten away from the rest of the field. The 5 of us worked together and stayed away the rest of the race.
After 4 times up the climb we rolled into the finish at Yellow Springs and I knew Rick was going to be the guy to watch after seeing his sprint earlier this year at the Arnold Classic race. I tried to pay attention and mark Rick as we rolled into town but he was faster than me I ended up finishing 2nd in the sprint and 3rd in the race.
All in all it was a good day. I hated falling off the initial break but I felt I was riding as well as could be expected. As long as I learn something from each race I hope to be OK as the season progresses.
After the race I rolled back to the car and was pleasantly surprised to see former teammate and all around good guy Dan Rhule with a pan of his famous "Rhule Bars". Awesome!!! Hey Dan - when are you going to start marketing those bars? By the way, Dan was sporting his new super sweet sub-16 pound Bianchi today - very nice!!!
Kudos to our teammate Pascale who won her race today!
Next week - Deer Creek.
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