Race Report: State Road Race Sun June 7th

When we last left off it was State RR time and the squad of Alex, Rob, newly minted Cat 1 Corey, Jason, Orion, and I travelled to Bakersfield for the 93 mile State Road Race. We were accompanied by super sognieur/domestique Kevin Davenport. Kev was there to help feed us. He raced the Cat 5 Sunday morning before our race and finished in 34th place. He's a real trooper for helping us post race. I think many of us were still in bed while he was going up the climb the first time!

The race started with the usual early attack which we let go without much fight. LaGrange rode on the front and kept the gap around 3 minutes. With 1 feeder and 6 guys requiring 2 bottle and food on 2 separate laps feeding was tricky. Corey and I were designated team leaders for the day and Alex, Rob, Jason, and Orion had domestique duty. they grabbed mussettes from Kevin and fed the team at each feed zone. This was huge. On the 2nd lap corey attacked the climb but the field chased him down. The break had dwindled to a solo rider and his gap was dropping. At the start of the 3rd lap we got our final feed and we lost Alex and Rob after they slayed themselves for the squad. a pair of riders snuck off and caught the solo man and the break surged ahead as we hit the final climb. Jason also snuck off the front to keep Swamis in the game! We rode up the final climb slow but we still lost riders; we were 80 miles into a 93 mile race! On the descent LaGrange chased furiously and they were down to 1 man, Adam Livingston in the final miles (Adam was defending champ and like the champion he is he chased solo on the front to stay in the race). SC Velo and Jason and Orion hit the front and pulled back the break with 1 mile to go! Orion put in a few digs to keep it fast and Jason moved me up to the top 5. I yelled at Jason to go and make it fast and with 600m to go he jumped. After he faded Thurlow Rogers took over and the sprint was on! A few guys came around my right and a few on the left and I passed a few and we hit the line. I crossed in 6th! Sweet! It was a great team result! Everyone rode awesome and we got lots of props for our efforts! Post race we snagged burritos at Chipotle- my favorite post race treat!

Next up: San Pedro GP and the return of the Cuban Missle!

Chris