Westlake April 22, 2008

From CRCycling

By Kevin

B Race

The third evening of the Westlake training series was warm and windy. There was a stiff headwind on the back stretch of the course and a tailwind on the front stretch of the course. The race was well attended again. There were about 20 riders in the field. Snakebite managed to field a whole squad of 6, maybe 8 riders! I saw orange and blue all around me during the race.

I attacked right at the start of the race and hoped one or two Snakebite riders would join. If we got a gap, the race might be over. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The field reeled the small group back in after half a lap.

The race settled down for the next fifteen minutes. A firetruck was parked on the road and the field rolled to a stop, then cautiously passed. A group of three riders used the chaos as an opportunity to escape and launched an impressive breakaway. Two of the teams in the field (including Snakebite) were represented in the break, and a strong unattached rider was also in the group, so the race settled into a pattern of riders attempting to to get away from the Snakebite driven field and bridge to the lead group, and the field catching the chasers, and settling into a steady pace.

Finally, with a few laps to go, riders from CWRU put in a huge chase to bring the breakaway back. Snakebite launched a heavy duty leadout with about 1 kilometer to go. I have a little more snap in my legs after three hard weeks of racing and training, but not enough to sprint yet, so I started my cool down with 600 meters to go.