Hey Podium, Long Time No See.

It’s been a while since I’ve visited the podium, excluding weekday races, but last weekend at the Downtown High Point Crits I finally made it back. As with any big local race there was some build up. Being next to my current adopted hometown of Winston, the crowd and the field were filled with friends. With the added prestige of being twilight crits there was a bit more than money on the line. The lights were on, the band was loud, the beer was flowing, the stage was set.

It seems like it would be hard to get excited about a crit at 10:30pm in the rain but all I could think about Friday night was racing my bike. My only teammate was Mark Hekman, past winner of Athens Twilight and last year’s USA Crits overall winner. I definitely saw it as an opportunity to prove I was worthy of the jersey. I raced hard early hoping the race would blow apart with the wet course but it was all in vain. The race stayed together and I was too patient coming into the last corner. Mark managed 2nd despite coming out of his pedal in the sprint and I rolled across in 11th, not good enough.

The skies cleared for Saturday’s race. It was a different course but utilized the same start/finish straight. With Mark gone to race at Sommerville, it was up to me to get a result for the pro team based 20 minutes away. There was going to be a break and I was going to be in it. That was it, no questions. In the end, that’s exactly what happened. We went early, the composition of the break shuffled a little bit with a couple guys getting dropped but four of us finally found a good rhythm and stayed away.

The break getting established.

Wiping crap off my face.

I enjoyed my time off the front. I can’t lie, it was a bit of an ego boost to come through the start/finish stretch and hear all the people shouting my name. A big thanks goes out to all of you. It definitely made me want the win that much more. However, my options were limited. It was going to be hard to get away and with two good sprinters in the move the win wasn’t going to be handed over easily. The fact that we basically soft pedaled the last eight laps and everyone was able to recover didn’t help my cause either. I put in a dig with one to go but no luck. Everyone else was content to sprint it out and I was in too low of a gear coming out of the last corner so that was it, third.

I can sit here and shoulda, coulda, woulda all day but in the end I got third and that’s that. It was a move I could have won out of for sure. You always want to win and I’m not content with third. However, I’m going to feel good about it and enjoy the moment. It was another step up and as long as I’m moving forward I shouldn’t get down on myself. It also serves as a confidence builder coming into the Tour of Ohio and Fitchburg, two of the big goals for the year. The form is on track so I’m really hoping I can make something happen at those races. The extra love in the bank account from the weekend was also a relief.

As a side note, the venue was awesome! I hope they can keep those races going and Chip did and awesome job organizing everything. Live music, a beer garden, Chad Andrews calling the action, all completely sheltered, it was 100% PRO. If you weren’t there you missed out.

The venue before the masses arrived.