The trip started out a little rough, with a storage bay door coming open as we were leaving town and dumping some of our race wheels out onto Cantrell Rd. We didn't discover what had happened until we were about two miles away and after an exhaustive search we never found them. One set of wheels belonged to Wes, a pair of Zipp 404s estimated at over $3k with tires, cassette and padded case. The other was a $1k wheel belonging to Hunter and Evan. Kris French decided to post on FB that we had lost the wheels in hopes someone had found them and would turn them into a local bike shop. 10 minutes after the FB post, we received a call from Community Cyclist that a guy found them and noticed they looked expensive so drove into the closest bike shop and turned them in. We managed to pick them up with enough time to get underway and have time for Kris and Wes to start their race that evening. A huge thank you goes out to the Community Cyclist crew and the guy that was nice enough to turn them in... we owe you all a beer.
No sooner had we begun rolling than we realized there wasn't any water in the storage tank and we hadn't picked up the clean sheets for the beds. So Hunter's wife Dustin met us out on Dixon Rd with the clean sheets as we filled up with water at the local gas station. So now it's time to leave, again, and we get the bus pinned in by some other cars and it takes us another 20 minutes to back the bus out of the tight parking lot. Ugh... we discover that it's actually Friday the 13th and everything begins to make sense.
We make it to Fridays race with just enough time to get Kris and Wes signed up and roll up to the line just a few minutes before the gun goes off. That was a stressful way to begin the weekend so we're really hoping for better things on Saturday and Sunday.
Hunter and I raced the masters race (3 stages) as the only two OKC Velo guys. The 55 mile rolling road race started off well as I made an early attack just to get things going and warm up a little. I was quickly reeled back in and then went with another attack and we managed to establish a small gap and hold it for a few miles before being caught on the one steep'ish hill on the course. About 3/4 away around the course, which we were doing two laps of, Hunter rolls up the road with two guys. It wasn't an attack per se, but the three of them had a 10 second gap before anyone realized what had happened and once Hunter saw this, he put the power down and they quickly established a nice lead on the field. The three teams now represented in this break all went to the front to insure any chase efforts would be controlled and discouraged. Hunters group managed to stay away after some aggressive chasing and Hunter ended up winning the stage by 3 minutes after he attacked his breakaway companions in the closing few miles of the race. The field was whittled down from 35 to 8 of us after all the hard chasing and I ended up 5th in the sprint and 8th overall on the stage. Hunter is now in the GC lead with a margin that gives him some cushion leading into the afternoon's Time Trial.
We all prepped for our 3 mile TT that wouldn't start until about 6:30 for most of us on the bus. Hunter rode strongly and ended up 3rd on the stage and I ended up 16th after riding my road bike, Eddy Merckx style. I dropped two places in the GC after losing some time to all the guys on their TT bikes. I really wasn't too worried about my placing at this point, I knew there was no way I was going to get a top TT placing on my road bike, but I did manage to limit my GC losses and most of the guys ahead of me only beat me by a few seconds, which gave me some confidence heading into the final stage on Sunday.
Sunday's circuit race was a short one of about 30 miles with a strong wind blowing. The finish was on top of the only significant hill which was good for me since I am starting to feel strong again. Hunter and I had some work to do knowing we he was going to be attacked all race long by the two teams representing 2nd and 3rd overall. There wasn't a lot of strategy involved, we didn't have to attack, but we did have to cover every little move that went off the front. The race went 4 laps on this course and after two, there was a hot spot sprint at the finish line for small time bonuses. Hunter went hard leading out the bonus sprint and I followed along with Donald Davis and Ed Novak. After we crossed the line, we had a decent gap on the field and decided to keep the effort going. Our gap was slowly growing but since the team of the second place rider wasn't represented in the break, they chased hard to pull us back, which they did a couple of miles later. It's now groupo compacto for the remainder of the race. Everyone realized they weren't getting up the road without Hunter and I so the attacks eased up a little as everyone was beginning to consider the finish.
Hunter took the final sprint without any real trouble and I managed 4th on the day. Hunter won the overall by a large margin and I was back up to 9th on GC. It was a good weekend and was fun having only two of us do so much damage to the bigger teams in our race. Kris and Wes both rode well and finished in the top 20 of the P,1,2 event and Evan also had a great race finishing 4th overall after an incredible Time Trial which saw him only a couple of seconds slower than his dad on Saturday. Look for Evan to dominate the Joe Martin Cat 4 race, he is gaining strength and confidence... a deadly combination for anyone in the East clan.
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