New course for this year. Less climbing but the wind was rough. We did 6 laps of 10 miles. The first Lap was very active as usually with Mike, Chris and Stuart covering most of the moves. After the first lap, there were several big attacks and as it slowed down, I simply rolled off the front to see if I could slip away. I got a descent gap while checking to see if anyone was up chasing, and soon I saw a single file line behind me, which meant they were coming strong, so I shut it down. As they cought me, a few more attacks went off, then again, as it slowed, I rolled off. It doesnt take alot of effort to just roll away when the pace is slow but you can’t create a good gap fast. So like last time, I keep checking to see if others would chase. Tim from Marx and Bendsdorf, whom I have worked well with in the past bridged up quickly with nobody on his wheel and I pulled him along, checking the pack behind me every few seconds. This time they gave us a little breathing room and we jammed it. I rode anaerobically for a few minutes and soon the gap was around 30 seconds. The guy with me was happy to do his share of work and by the next lap, we had over a minute on the feild. I told him to keep pushing hard until the gap grew to a minute and a half and then we could back off. We settled into a good tempo and worked very well together. With us both being big, we can do alot of damage on the flats and downhills so we really backed off on the uphills. This makes total sense to me as when one person is killing it on the flats, the other guy can benefit greatly from the draft until his turn. If you go hard on the hills, the guy behind has to work hard too and then you are both hurting when its time to crush the flats. We kept the gap at 1.5 until the motorcycle told us there was a chase group of 4 one minute behind. Just after the third lap they caught us and my teamate Brian Toone looked strong as always. The chase group was Chris Brown, Will Fyfe, Brian, and a Strong Krystal Cycling rider whom I’ve never ridin with before. Everyone seemed motivated to work and the gap grew. Behind us in the feild was a very motivated Jan Kolar, Jake Andrews, and Travis Werts who tried and tried to bridge the gap, but were shut down by Chris, Mike, and Stuart. I think that working to sit wheels in the feild is a harder job that actually being in the breakaway, since there is attack after attack, and you have to cover all of them. With a lap to go, the motivation to work together lessened and the attacks began. I was surprised to see that me and brian didn’t have to do much attacking but were put on the defensive several times by the other strong riders. We dropped Tim, the guy who went with me early, and the other 5 went to the line together. My teamate Brian gave up any chance to win by setting tempo on the front for the last K and then leading out the sprint for me. Brian jumped and ramped the speeds up to around 35 with Chris Brown on his wheel. I sat still until about 250 meters and then jumped. “when in doubt, lead it out”. When you jump first, you have the element of surprise, but chance having someone catch your slipstream and come around you at the line as you fade. I was able to gap the others with the initial acceleration and was able to hold it through the line. The sprint topped out at 43.5. Brian Held on for forth. Chris led the feild sprint our for Mike and Stuart, who placed very well. I dont know exact placing but they finished somewhere 8th-15th. Overall a very impressive day for Birmingham Velo! I Hope we can replicate it tomorrow for the criterium.

A great weekend up in memphis started with a big win in the circuit race. It was a very fast, safe course with one descent climb. We did 9 laps covering about 25 miles so it was fairly short. Nate Brown from the Trek Livestrong U23 team was there with a HUGE target on his back and I can’t say I wasnt aiming at it. First lap he killed the hill and I almost ended my race trying to stay with him. I recovered and was able to work with him, and I took the feild two laps to bring us back. He chilled a few laps and breaks went up the road like crazy. I trusted he knew what he was doing and waited. He attacked a few laps later on the hill and flew by the riders up the road. This happened several times, but somehow never stuck. I didnt work hard in any of the breaks because the sprint was a flat 1k drag into a headwind and I knew I had the power. Last lap I was on Nates wheel all the way up the climb, he didnt make a move so the climb was slow and just over the top was the 1kilo sign. I kept my wheel free and put my head in the wind to keep good position until it lined up for the sprint. I lined up 4th wheel. Marx and bendsdorf had a leadout to 400 meters and “freinds” took us to 300. I marked a rider who seemed to have great acceleration and fitness throughout the race, and it payed off. He jumped at 300 meters and I was able to suck in behind him still seated until about 200. I came out and around hard, sat down for about seconds, shifted to a bigger gear and grinded it out for the win.

The time trail was a 4 mile out and back, with a few rollers and some descent wind. I have gotten alot better at my sustained efforts and actually rode one of the best TT’s ever. I averaged 30mph on a road bike with the turnaround, so my speed average was actually a little higher than thirty. But still it is hard to compete with full aero TT bikes with disk wheels and aero helmets, and I ended up 11th. I ran an 8:07. Props to Nate Brown who past me just after the turn around going much faster than I was. He ran a 7:11.

I came Into the crit knowing that second place in the crit gave me the overall win, but I don’t ever play for second. Im just not a stage racer. I play for premes, cash, and the stage win. After a few boo boo attacks in the first few laps, Nate took off like a rocket. There was a terrible crosswind and I was on the left side of the echelon staying protected, and nate flew out on the right, directly into the wind. I knew that I missed the wheel and didnt want any part of the headwind coming up, but knew I could make the bridge soon. Several riders responded, but went too hard into turn one and crashed out. I made it through safely and decided to go for it. Before the race I wrote down the top five rider’s numbers on my handlebars. They were all with me, and we were all ready to work to catch Nate. We would have cought him, no doubt in my mind but as we came around the next lap, they had neutralized the race because of some serious injuries in the wreck. We stopped for about 10 minutes and restarted. They basically said Nate had a 10 second gap on the feild, so they gave him a 10 second head start. Totally different scenario now, and we never saw him again. The feild was very active, and with the cross winds, it split several times. I was in probobly 4 different breakaways, one being a two man break which lasted the latter half of the race, but was finally pulled back. I think I won all the cash premes, one being an all out effort to barely steal the gambler preme from Travis Sherman, who had shot a strong flyer, and left me with nothing in the tank for the final sprint a lap later. I finished 6th in the crit, which wasnt good enough to hold on to the overall win in the omnium. Nate won the omnium but in my opinion, the cash premes were worth it! Off to Nationals

2010 Cuba-Meridian Road Race – Wes Douglas – Tria Cycling p/b DonohooAuto & Infinity-Med-I-Spa

Last year I attacked from the gun and ended up in a two-man break for just short of 60 miles.  My break away partner popped halfway though and I just didn’t quite make it to the finish – Got caught 500m from the finish.   I did not want this to happen again however, I did want to go early again but hopefully with a little more help and team representation in the break.  As Stuart said, “whether or not Wes knows it yet, he’s still going to attack early”. 

A mile or two in some attacks began and eventually I saw one forming that looked pretty good, at least as team representation went.  It was a four-man break with Tim Carbonneau, John McLauchlin (Marx & Bensdorf), Andrew? (Herring Gas) and myself.  We had a good gap from the field but it was small (about 30-40 sec) and for quite a while it wasn’t growing.  I did my best to drive the break and motivate the other 3 guys to keep pushing it because I knew my teammates (Paul Tower, Brian Toone & Stuart Lamp) would do everything they could to block for us and hopefully so would the other two big teams (Herring Gas & Marx Bensdorf) with break representation.  On the steepest kicker we almost dropped Andrew (Herring Gas) so I fell back a little to help get him back up to the break.  My thought was it was too early to loose Herring’s rider because the break was only about a minute from the field and if they saw him coming back they might start attacking to shut the remaining three of us down.  After this I suggested we all just keep a good tempo on the hills, bomb the down hills and hammer the flats.  After getting Andrew back on the break he was only able to roll through and soon even that ended, leaving him to float on the back.  About 18miles in John (Marx & Bensdorf), said he had to sit on which was really depressing for me to hear because essentially this left Tim and I to do most of the work.  I really didn’t want all this effort to have been for nothing and I didn’t want a repeat of last year’s disaster.  For a second I considered just sitting up and letting the field catch us but then I decided, to hell with it, and to give it everything to drive the break as long as I could…maybe…. just maybe we would make it. 

Going into the second lap and the first time thought the feed zone I saw that Gavin Lansden (BBC) had been allowed to slip off the front of the field and he was bridging.  I was really glad to see him coming because for a while now only Tim and I were working.  John and Andrew would have worked if they could have but they were just done.  Once Gavin linked up we were really able to pick up the pace but then Andrew finally had to call it quits.  We now had about 5 min on the field and about 2-2:40min from a 4 man chase group.  At first the chase wasn’t gaining on us but about on the backside of the second lap I finally had to take a break and sit on some and our average really dropped. Going into the last lap the chase was still 2:40 back but in the feed zone I had some issues with getting a bottle and had to come to almost a stop to get one.  I think John turned off the course at this point.  It was now down to Gavin, Tim and I.  The 4 man chase was only about 40 sec back and it wasn’t long before we saw them coming.  I started sitting on and trying to recover a little for the attacks I knew would come.  We were caught just before the steepest kicker hill (which was something I was hoping we could avoid).  The chase was made up of Pat Allison (Ion-United Health), Brian Toone (Tria Cycling), Woody Boudreaux (Herring Gas) and Travis Sherman (Moontoast guest riding for Bensdorf).  Pat attacked halfway up the hill and I had my doubts about being able to respond or maintain contact, I had been feeling twinges in my quads and knew I was very close to completely locking up.  Somehow I made it but we lost Travis. 

I tried sit in all I could to recover a little before the stair step climb and the left hand turn. I thought I might have one more attack left in me before going into complete survival mode.  So when the climb began I hit it and got a big gap.  I knew I didn’t have the energy to carry the move all the way to the top and left turn so while I was up there I decided to make use of the moment and do something about twinges in my quads.  I unclipped and started stretching them (which if I hadn’t done I don’t think I would have finished the race).  This was when Brian attacked and came flying by me, completely clear of the other riders.  This looked perfect to me so when Pat, Woody and Tim came by I just jumped on.  We were now dropping Gavin.  With Brian up the road and putting on some serious time I wasn’t obligated to do a thing, that was up to Pat and Woody to do.  For the rest of the 3rd lap I sat in all I could sometimes pulling though, sometimes not.   We did drop Gavin so here I was again in a break of 4 with my teammate up the road and out of sight.

I really just wanted this to all be over.  Making the right turn off the course and on the home stretch our pace started to drop with anticipation of the sprint.  It was painfully slow as Pat and Ryan watch each other to see who would make a move.  There was no chance of the field catching us so we just came to a crawl and this allowed Gavin to catch back on.  Being a non-sprinter and having been driving a break all day my odds a doing well in this situation did not look good at all.  I gave it a shot but completely locked up and watched the Pat, Woody, Tim and Gavin cross the line before me.  All in all, a much better result than last year. 6th place still beats getting swarmed by the field with 500m to go.  Brian had placed 3rd in the crit the night before so his 1st in the road race gave him the Omnium.  I had just held on in the crit and didn’t place but the 6th place result in the race gave me 10th in the Omnium, Paul had place 5th in the crit and with a 7th place finish in the road race he finished 4th in the Omnium, Stuart placed 10th in the road race & 11th for the Omnium.  All in all a great race for Tria Cycling.