Banana Belt 1 report, Masters 50+

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.