roadcx.net

I haven’t been exactly on form since my Estonia trip a few weeks ago. The last week or so has been a bit crazy with work with the additional load of buying a house (I expect to close by the end of September). The main reason I even went to Oak Ridge this weekend was in support of Andrea’s quest to seal up the Womens 1-3 TBAR jersey (she had a lead, but needed to get another RR in to make sure).

Time Trial – 8 miles. The event was an out and back TT on Bethel Valley Road which is actually a closed road within the secure complex in Oak Ridge. This meant the road had little traffic and good pavement. The original distance was 14 miles, but they shortened it to start at the Portal (guard shack) and use a roundabout as the turn around. I was pretty tired (we rolled into Oak Ridge after midnight the night before and my TT start was 8:20am). Despite this, I managed to roll a pretty good TT (for me) which was good enough for 3rd of 7 (small field).

Road Race – 66 miles. The lack of sleep Friday night was my big concern acoming into the hilly road course. Because of the small Cat 3 and P12 fields, they combined us for the road race. As expected, this increased the pain. Right out of the neutral zone, a group of 7 to 8 (mostly 3’s) jumped off the front. The rest of the field chased and I tried to save my strength for the two big hills on each lap. As we hit the bigger one about 10 miles in there was some hard attacks and the field strung out and I was put off the back. I chased and chased, but the rear of the field was chasing hard and I was losing time to the chase. By the second hill I caught up with a dropped rider. We worked together and pulled in another a bit later. By the start of the 2nd lap, we were 4. After the big hills on the 2nd lap, one dropped off quickly, so we continued on as 3. We lost another that pulled out of the race at the end of the 2nd lap, so it was two. After the descent of the big hill on the last lap, I rode away from the last guy (he must have just sat up, I had 300 feet when I noticed that I was alone) and finished out the lap alone. The main reason I bothered to ride it out, is that omnium scoring was 20 deep (and double points for the TT & RR), so even the 11th place was worth getting. This puts me in 5th place for the omnium going into the crit (only single points).