Saturday's Event - Road race (17 mi laps with 1500ft climbing per lap)
- D2-class (1 lap): Garrett and Joe both did well in this event. Garrett somehow was able to grab another first place victory while Joe took 7th. Pretty shocking because the road race is Joe's type of event. Apparently he lost both contacts in the race and wasn't comfortable participating in the full sprint. Garrett on the other hand bullied his way through two riders riding very close together, screaming angrily as he pulled into first.
- C-Class (2 laps): Ben, Corbin, and I competed in this. Garrett was kind enough to display the scores to the b-ball game as we rode by for our two laps. I got dropped from the pack around halfway through the second lap. I passed a few riders after getting dropped and eventually rode in a pace line with Corbin (fellow Nova rider) and two other riders. I beat Corbin in the sprint because he blew up right before the finish line and took my usual 19th place (out of 53). Ben got dropped after the first lap and I believe grabbed 41st or 44th.
- B-class (3 laps): James was holding his own with the pack. The b class did not split up nearly as much as the c-class. Unfortunately there was a big crash early on in the sprint which James got caught up behind it. James ended up getting 18th place. The two riders went down real hard in the crash, one went face first into the pavement and was knocked unconscious for a little bit. He was fine. The other army racer, got some serious road rash and went to the hospital. Apparently you could see some bone on either his elbow or knee.
Note: the map in google maps is not up to date (all construction was fully finished and buildings were occupied when we raced) The course I mapped out on mapmyride doesn't really show the intensity of the turn. The location where the hazard marker is where there was a foot path across the road. The foot path was cut into the hill and cut level and made with cobblestones/bricks. Then right after the foot path there was a very quick change in grade that could result in some air if taken quick enough. I showed the picture icon where crashes would probably take place. Believe it or not, in the woman's B race, the pace motorcycle crashed at this turn and he had to be taken to the hospital in a stretcher. They used a follow car for the remainder of the races and the car would squeal its tires after passing over this foot path a couple of times. Now for the races...
- D2-Class (20 min): Garret placed third and Joe placed 17th out of 31. Garret might be forced to join me, Ben, and Corbin in the c-class because apparently there is a rule if you grab three podium finishes you must move up.
- C-class (30min): for some reason Ben didn't get put up on the results. I, as usual, placed 19th... the epic curse, there were 45 riders. I did have one very close call almost eating shit on the nasty turn. After taking the turn pretty hard I began pedaling too early and scraped my left pedal on the pavement. I was pedaling hard enough that the force lifted my rear end off the ground and drifted it over a few inches to the outside of the turn. This also resulted in bringing the bike past perpendicular and angling a bit to the right, while my right foot automatically released from the pedal and i landed on my saddle. The crowd all yelled out with "ohhh" followed by everybody clapping as I regained my balance and pulled this one out of the bag with my superior bike handling skills. This incident cost my priceless seconds and resulted in my loosing the pack and fighting with the first follow pack. While Garrett had a valiant effort in cheering me on with various pictures, including one of a skoal tin, a failed to really remain in the race. I ended up completing 24 out of 30 min.
- B-Class: James did superb, throwing his usual race strategy to the wind and riding up front for a number of laps grabbing 2nd in two prime laps. He ended up placing 7th. His race was quite an awesome race to witness.
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