VIEW FROM THE 35+ FIELD
The 35 plus guys towed the line with 8 team mates today, which was a strong showing for March. Our field was larger than expected, given the ACA's new rule to not allow cat 3 in our field, after they have been allowed for the last 30 years............ Ourselves and Boulder Orthopedic were the big teams and we tried to use our size to our advantage. Jim Thies has been riding well, so our goal was to get him in the winning break. As a result he sat in for the first half of the race to wait for the right move, as did Matt Gates, and Josh our lazy sprinter. So the rest of the guys covered moved with CJ, LT, Lee, Segur, and Marc up there. There was a lot of attacking int he first 20 minutes, but honestly nothing was that strong. Most of the attacking was coming from the regular riders as some of the strong men held back. Things got hot about 25 minutes in and the guys were all over the front. Jim marked his man, Michael Gibson, and they got away in a 4 man move, during a time when the race was under pressure. It was an interesting dynamic today as the wind was blowing up, and across the hill, which is much easier than normal. During the race pressure 3 more guys got up to the lead group and that was the only mistake our guys made all day, in not getting a second rider up there.
As such the winning 7 man move was set and with the strong teams represented, it was not coming back. Unfortunately the Boulder Orthopedics team had 2 riders in the break, and they were able to better use Grant to do the work driving things, while saving Michael Gibson for the end. Jim was well aware of this, so he made sure to use his energy wisely, and he put in a few late attacks. None the less it came down to a 7 man sprint, which Michael won going away, as he is a very good sprinter. Jim made a well timed move to come from further back as other guys died and lost a bike throw at the line for 2nd, but was happy to make the podium (3rd).
The rest of the guys let the Boulder Ortho guys do the blocking and we started to attack them. LT got away with one other rider and set up a great launching pad for Matt Gates, who got away with 4 other guys to form the second group. Matt dominated the sprint from this group at the end and looks to be on good form. Back in the field it was a little wild as we went from 6 to go to 1 to go in a lap, but Josh, Lee an CJ contested the field sprint for around 12th, good practice for up coming races.
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