Tour De Bozeman, MT, 2 more wins

Tour de Bozeman Race report from Marcel:

Friday Big Sky Criterium:

Maters A and cat 3’s were combined. The crit course had 6 turns, had some elevation change with the last 4 turns so close in succession that made passing near impossible. There were two  $100 primes. I was gunning to get those and use those set ups to see where the best place was to start the sprint. Unfortunately the announcer never told us what the prime was for. In the end I ended up with two primes that were gift certificates for a store that was closed! Lame.  It did help me figure out the sprint and won that.

Saturday AM Time trial:

The TT was pretty technical in that it was constantly up and down with lots of false flats. It would have helped to do it 10 times to figure out where to push through and where to conserve. In the end I got 5^th place.

Saturday PM Street sprints:

I was really looking forward to these! It was a 300 meter long,  triple elimination so each rider had to lose three races to be eliminated. My first heat was against the guy that got 2^nd last year.  He looked like a track sprinter with legs the size of a horse! I was a bit worried.  I did my usual “get out the gate like a bat out of hell”. I got a gap on him and was looking to coast the last 100 meters…I looked back and he kept coming so I had to kick again to the line to take the win. The next two went easier and I won both my second and third heats.  For the fourth I had to race the guy I had raced in heat three again since he had only lost twice. I beat him again and took the win.

Sunday The road race:

Maters A and cat 3’s were combined again. This race took place on a lot of the roads that I trained on for 15 years while living in Montana. There was a total of 5000 feet of climbing, all above 6000feet of elevation. The first 5 miles of the race was down hill rollers followed by a 3 mile stepping climb. I had my concerns about this climb but suffered through it to make it to the top. Following the downhill, and another 7 miles of 2-3% climbing where a stiff pace was set by three guys from a local team, we arrived at the tough part of the race; a two mile climb with grades of 8-9%. I stayed near the front and focused on the wheel in front of me. I ended up getting dropped about ½ mile from the top. Over the top I started chasing down the 5 mile decent. At the bottom of the decent I could see the field about 30 second up the road. Another 5 minutes of chasing got me back in the field. To my surprise the pace was ridiculously slow; 16-18mph. I sat in and recovered for about 5 minutes and started attacking through the rollers to the turn around.  I knew the last climb had 11-14% pitches and would get dropped so wanted to either get away or make it hard for the climbers.  Attack 6 finally got me a gap, unfortunately I was alone as no one was interested to make the race hard. I was off the front about 4-5 miles before the race leader hunted me down with the field in tow.  In the 15 miles leading up to the last climb I attacked on every roller and each time someone would chase me down with the field in tow. As the final climb started I did one last suicide move and attacked with everything I had. The field blew up and the leader came up to me with 5 other riders. As he passed me he jokingly said “marcel, you are a pain in the ass”. They left me and I was caught by a few more riders before we got to the finish.  I got 7^th which moved me up to 4^th place in the final GC standings.