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Andrea and I are on the way down to Rouge Roubaix now.  Team car is right behind us heading down to the course.  We will not have a huge contingent at the race (1/2/3 race will just be Bryant, Will, and myself), the rest are racing solo (although John will be racing 40+ masters with Andrea’s women’s field).  The start list for this year promises to be at least as hard core as last year when a relentless tempo by Metro VW strung out the field to and through the first gravel.

Last year, I fell off 5 miles or so into the gravel 2-wheel drifting in a corner and losing contact.  Ended up in a chase group and was going well in when I was forced on a bad line in the 2nd gravel and went down.  I recovered and managed to catch back some, but still ended up 24th overall in the A-race (1st cat 3).

This year, the Cat 3 has a separate prize list with a $500 check for the top spot, so I expect it will be a bit harder to repeat.  You might be wondering why I didn’t upgrade based on that, but if you look at the rest of my season, I was a category 3 racer with okay to good results.  I have no qualms about trying to defend my Cat 3 win this year.  I should get the results to put together my upgrade to Cat 2 later this spring, I just don’t have it yet.

I feel pretty good, but I not going as well as I was last year at this time due to work travel (China twice in a month!) and generally bad weather this winter.  That is okay, since the season is still young..  It will just take me pulling out something out of the air to make it happen again at Rouge this year.