Posted on behalf of Steve Long:

With some heavy hitters in the field like Ivan Meadors and Harry Phenney, I must say I was a bit intimidated after the results of my last two races. However, both of those guys threw down a couple of attacks and I was still there toward the front of the field. I noticed that there was this one United Finance guy (Ivan’s team) that kept trying to go off the front. On the last lap, Jim, (this same UF guy), went off again except this time he had two guys with him. It seemed like the impetus had gone out of the peloton and with barely a 1/2 a lap remaining, I reasoned that I could go nearly all out for that long. So, I launched an attack of my own and bridges to the three riders that were upstream a bit. After resting for a moment, I told them we had a good gap and tried to get everybody working together. So, after having worked together for most of the way in, at 4K to go, we had 38 seconds on the field. By 1k to go, we still had 25 seconds and I kept urging working together to stay off. We did that and the field never caught us. I went a little early and ran out of steam before the finish and Jim & Jamey both beat me but I got the other guy. It was completely awesome going off and staying off in that field. However, I have to give credit to Ivan and the rest of United Finance as they weren’t going to chase down one of their own team mates. Thanks guys. Awesome race.

I arrived at 7:30 and set up the tent with Allen.  Man it was cold!  It had been below freezing that night so the sun was a welcome thing.  We set up on the very south end of the Port building which turned out to be a good quiet area.   Weather looked as good at it gets in February around here. 

Allen and I were joined by Ronny and Steve on the trainers.  Dean and Joe Kline showed up to show support and help out as needed.  “Mr. President”, Jon was out taking pictures on the hairpin.  Thanks very much.   Joe Cipale, Larry and Georgann were in attendance but in a different spot. 

The Race officials got a late start for some reason, delaying all starts by 15 minutes.  That created some understandable confusion with riders checking in constantly at their correct time only to find out they had 15 mintues more.   

The start had one small piece of entertainment.  Another rider, just out for a sunday ride on his bike, went past the start tent exactly as I left the tent.  Now I have a rider directly in front of me (with officials just behind me of course….drafting penality?), a car coming behind and nowhere to go.  That passed pretty quickly so very little time lost there but made me a bit anxious for moment. 

The race was “below expectations” but no excuses.  Weather was good, not much wind, position felt good, no real impediments on the course (unlike some contending with all the traffic), been doing the training etc.  My quads just didn’t like it at all yet my heartrate was 5-6 bpm below LT and never came back up. 

I do prefer having the start in the original location by the park.  The congestion, traffic etc at the new start was messy plus having to ride back after the event, adding more bikes on the road. 

I had a good time otherwise.  Hanging around with the team was great.  Next race for me is Piece of Cake.  

 edit:  Here are some pictures that Jon took:

I’m a little late with this, but what the heck. The season has officially begun! Steve, Ronny, Allen, and myself all signed up to toe the line on Saturday. Unfortunately, Allen caught a nice cold so he couldn’t make it. I picked up the canopy from him bright and early on Saturday and started the drive south. I made good time and got to the parking area by 7:45am. Needless to say I had my choice of spots to set up the canopy. It took a bit but I finally figured out how to set that big monster up by myself and headed down to sign in.

The rain was pretty off and on and was finally off again by the time the race started, the ground was nice and wet for the race though. The 40+, 50+, and 60+ 4/5’s were all in the same race and there were around 60 of us or so. The race itself was a nice fast group ride. You could tell it was the first race of the season as there was some serious sketchy action going on. Let’s see, where to begin, there was the random hard braking, swerving around while reaching for your water bottle, not holding your line in the turns (two guys actually hit each other as one swung wide and the other cut in.. not sure how they stayed upright..) A guy slid up from behind me and tangled his bars up with mine, I was able to get it undone pretty quickly, but it could have been a nasty situation…  Other than that kind of thing it was a nice ride, some surges, some lulls, a couple of breaks that got about 100 yards away before everyone jumped for them…  I had decided that I was just going to hang out in the pack until the end and try my luck on the hill. I started moving up towards the front when we were on the last couple miles of flats and eventually was around 4th wheel when we made the first right hander up the initial little hill near the finish. I pushed it a bit up this hill ’cause I didn’t want a bunch of guys coming around and boxing me in. Everyone pretty much soft pedalled down the backside of that first pitch toward the finish hill. I was second or third wheel coming into the bottom of that little beast and tried to hold off dropping the hammer as long as I could. When the guys in front of me jumped, I went as well.  We were at about the 200 meter mark when all the skinny guys who had been boxed up behind got free and came flying up past me…. I was looking over my shoulder as I was getting closer to the line and there was a guy about 5 feet back… So I just kept going as hard as my short little legs would pedal. They were completely and totally on fire. I’m talking like 5 alarm, habenero type of on fire. I was almost to the line and I looked back to see I managed to put some distance between us so I sat down and coasted over for 8th place… 

 After that, I rode back to the parking lot and flushed some of the lactic acid from my legs. Then I met up with Ronny and Steve and hung out a bit while they warmed up. I rode back to the finish line and cheered them on as they came through on their first laps. They got what they wanted from their races, which was distance at a good race pace and called it a day.  So there ya go…… Next up for me is BB1, but there are a ton of y’all ready to do some booty kickin’ at Jackfrost… Good luck with that, I’ll come down and cheer…