Good? Friday Road Race

Every year, my entire cycling career, Good Friday has kicked off the season. Twice in cadet and now twice in Senior 1/2. I haven't had much luck ever at this race but this year was different! Sort of..... After an hour delay due to a bad car accident on the original course we started. I knew if it came to a bunch gallop a high placing would be nearly impossible, this of course due to the fast tailwind to the finish added to the fact my max gear is a 52x14. But hey who am I kidding, even with a 53x11 I probably couldn't compete with 30 year olds when it comes to a 20 second torque man off! So go for the early break it was! I attacked a whole bunch of times and no one seemed interested in coming with me and I kept getting chased down. Leading up to a series of three hard climbs I went for it and another rider came with me. We had maybe 15 seconds at one point but we were quickly caught as the big guns of the OCA peleton floored it on the climbs. They managed to split the field and sadly I was way too tired from my effort and couldn't hop on to them as they accelerated past. Now I began to recover, but our pack of 50 was strung out and with the high winds shelter was hard to come by. Even worse the long tail wind section should be a breeze but with my lack of gears.... not so much. In order to ride at 50+km/h for 8km you need to spin about 120 cadence and that can be pretty annoying after that long. After some time out of the tailwind I was ready to put in work. I attacked up to a guy just 100m off the front and we worked together but our efforts seemed like they would not do us any good. Then, our fortunes changed. A group of 4 guys came up to us and we started killing it. Over the duration of this group we dropped two guys and went over the hardest section of the course hills followed by tail wind. I was feeling great and was one of the better guys in the hills, but I could do nothing in the tailwind part and was pretty useless. By the time we made it up to the leaders I was feeling a little crampy and was just hoping to hang on to the finish and pick up a top 10 result. 4 guys then attacked as soon as we got to the front and no one wanted to work. This caused us to get caught by the peloton and a lot of fresh people who didn't help the legendary ride with rendall rider and the garneau team to catch us to beat me in the sprint. I did my best to stay near the front, going a little into the wind but I was pushed back by the corner and my cramped legs did nothing for me in the sprint and I rolled across for 26th place.

All in all I had a good day. I was unlucky to have missed the original move, but I am certain had I been a little fresher and not already working up front I would have made it into the fold. Next saturday I race the legendary Battenkill, since I will be with the juniors it is a race I really hope to win.