Salida Omnium

This is a long standing 3 day race held in the mountain town of Salida, CO. Typically there is a time trial on Friday night, a crit on Saturday and a road race on Sunday. The road race has a fair amount of climbing and tends to be the deciding factor. This year the 35 plus guys had a small team as only Matt Gates made it. Some of the other guys needed a rest and Matt Segur was at Nationals. The 45 plus guys showed up with a full team and were ready to battle.

Matt G rode a solid time trail and then got into the winning 4 man break in the crit. He put together a fantastic sprint in the crit, basically drifting through the finial coroner, and passing 2 riders in the last 50 meter, to take the win. The win also moved him into 2nd in the overall, but there were only a few points separating the top guys.

Matt's RR report: I went into the RR with a 1 point deficit on Jeff Hartman from Big Shark. Unfortunately the top of the climb came too far from the finish. Hartman attacked super hard on the last time up. I threw it in the big ring and hauled him back. In the process I rode Michael Gibson off my wheel, but he came back, yet it was fun to put him in the hurt locker. It was cat and mouse after that and three other guys caught back on during the decent. There was a tailwind on the finishing stretch and Hartman got the jump making it too difficult to come around. Gibson pipped me for second. Not a bad weekend overall and I took 2nd. Even though Matt was riding solo he manged to extend our BAT lead.

The 45's got the weekend off with a downer as their TT was cancelled. The skys had opened, there was standing water on the TT course and lightning everywhere. They went into the Saturday crit well rested and come out with a strong 2nd place for Jeff O. The rider who won was a crti only guy, and would not be starting the RR. So Jeff effectively had the race lead with only the RR to go.

Jeff's RR report: heading into today’s road race stage of the Salida Omnium, Mix 1 had two GC cards to play with Jeff leading the standings and Jimi sitting in third, while Great Divide’s Derrick Nichol was positioned in second. Given the amount of climbing on the stage, Jimi was Plan A. If Jimi could escape without Derrick on his wheel, he’d been a lock for the overall and Jeff would have happily handed over the GC honors to his teammate. Alternatively, if Jimi’s efforts failed and Jeff managed to survive the day’s seven climbs, a sprint victory over Derrick would also win the GC for Mix 1. Unfortunately, the shorter climbs in this year’s race combined with a slight headwind to negate Jimi’s efforts to try and escape on the climbs. In addition, after each climb it became more and more apparent that if Jimi could escape with a small group, that group would most likely have been him, Derrick, and Derrick’s teammate Karl Kiester. Perhaps Peter could have made the split but after yesterday’s crash Peter was too far back in the standings to have made an impact on the GC.

With Plan B starting to look like the best option, Jeff put it into full on survival mode for the day’s final two climbs. He would start the climbs near the front, sink to the back on the steep parts, each shit big time to hang on on the false flats, move up on the short descents and repeat the process until finished. After Jeff made it over the day’s final climb, all was set for Plan B. Divide’s Karl Kiester led out the slightly uphill, slight head winds print with Derrick on his wheel. With about 200 meters to go Karl pulled off and Jeff jumped getting a quick gap on Derrick. Derrick clawed his way back, but was still behind Jeff when Jeff (starting to spin out) dropped to a bigger gear that he never quite got on top of. Derrick took the sprint by a half wheel and with the day’s victory also claimed the overall. Jeff added another second to go with his second from the day before and placed second on the GC. Jimi placed 4th in the sprint and 4th overall while Matt V finished 5th on theGC. Today’s tip of the hat goes to Great Divide’s Derrick Nichol. We went into this race with two solid options for the overall and gave them both our best shot. Yet, Derrick managed to keep pace with our best climber and to out kick our fastest finisher. Strong work Derrick.

Photos are from Pete I. Frist one is Matt Gates taking the win in the 35 plus crit. Second one is Matt Gates riding in the break. The third photo is Jeff from the 45 plus team telling everyone he could how excited he was about scoring a parking spot so close to the port-o-potties. As you can tell Jeff is a veteran!