Mid-Ohio #2

Raced at Mid-Ohio again tonight. Glad it was a 6:30pm start which helped avoid the high heat. It was still in the mid-80s at the start but cooled off a bit during the race. Stark Velo lined up with ~18 total racers in a 3/4 field and also had the 2 cat 1/2 guys mixed in with us. John Lowry, Erik Lesco, Don Bunker, Joel Schmidt, and Steve Drake were in attendance. We were doing 18 laps on the 2 mile course.

First thing is that this is a real fun course to ride. The uphills are gradual, big ring type climbs and the payoff is a long downhill straight leading into several sweeping uphill and downhill turns that you can take at high speed. Early in the race, John instigated a break and soon had 3 others join him. Their gap built up pretty quick and after a couple laps, it was apparent that it was not coming back.

There were a few attacks over the next several laps, with one that nearly succeeded in reaching the break. With 4 to go, a solo attack went off and the rider built a good gap. I talked with Erik and suggested he get up with that guy to go for 5th place overall. On the downhill section, erik drove hard and was most of the way up to that rider, with one more rider in tow. They eventually formed a 3 man break.

Meanwhile, 1 lap later, Jeff from Inferno launched a good attack downhill and built a gap. I decided to jump with all I had and hoped I could form a 2 man break with him. I'd be racing for training only at that point as the money spots were all up the road. We were able to get clear and I worked my ass off, but only probably did about 1/3 the total work and Jeff was obviously cool with keeping our break together. With 2 to go, we had a large gap and figured we were safe. I rolled across the line just behind him.

John ended up 2nd in a 3-up sprint, after dropping the 4th rider. Erik finished 5th, just short of catching the dropped rider from the winning break. I was 7th and enjoyed the race due to the course and definitely got some quality miles in with the break in the last 4 laps.

On tap tomorrow... CrossFit total