The Tour of the Valley went great! I was feeling good and excited about my first stage race with the pro sqad. I'll spare you the entire race recap but you can find it at the revamped team Web site, teammountainkhakis.com. To summarize, Joey, Matt and Oscar crushed the entire race and we made lots of money. However, I took a lot more than money back from Ohio.
My time trial performance seemed lacking on paper but my wattage was actually quite good. Not having a TT bike hurt me in the end but no matter, I was ready to work. The road race was on a fairly rolling course with a couple hills. Having three guys in the top four overall, it was up to us to control the race. That meant a lot of time on the front for me and Will. I have to say I rode better than I had anticipated. I did a lot of work, was able to suffer through the climb both times after leading out the guys into the bottom of it and when we hit the finishing circuits I was still in the very select front group. I was fairly spent on the circuits but my job was done. I wanted to have a big ride in the crit but it wasn't quite as good as I had hoped. I covered as many moves as possible in an effort to keep the pre-race plan intact but wasn't able to control the race quite like I wanted. I did manage to work my way up to 20th overall. Not bad considering I did so while being 100% focused on working for the team and spending a lot of time on the front. In fact, I didn't even realize it until Joey told me after we had left so they had to mail the check.
Tour of the Valley TT
It was also a great experience to room with Matt Cooke. Matt has ridden for some of the biggest teams in the country including Navigators and Health Net and his experience showed, on and off the bike. Being a professional bike racer in about so much more than what you see in a race. You have to be a complete professional at all times. It's a business and learning how to conduct yourself off the bike is almost as important and pushing the pedals hard... almost. Also, a big thanks to Jim Behrens for all the amazing support throughout the week. We all had a great time and he took so much weight off our shoulders. He is a true enthusiast and it's refreshing to be around someone who so purely loves bike racing.
Tour of the Valley Crit
After the successful Ohio trip I was ready for some French Broad action but numerous logistical matters led to only going up for the crit. Long story short, tried to get in a break but nothing was going, started pouring rain, felt good but was swarmed before the sprint and had the door shut on me in the final strait, 12th. I felt like rode good and had the sprint to win but should have been more aggressive after I was swarmed.
Oh, the other revelation of the past couple weeks. According to the coach, I'm a sprinter. After finally having reliable power data the sprint legs are looking good. I'll have to admit, the sprint has been feeling good lately. If nothing else, there has been a boost in confidence which never hurts. Hopefully I can pull the trigger on a good sprint the next couple weeks and come up with the goods. With Elk Grove and Crossroads right around the corner there shouldn't be a shortage of opportunities so keep your fingers crossed. With no job and the prospect of having to secure a ride for next year the pressure to perform has been taken up a notch. It's about to get interesting.
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