Tria Cycling presented by DonohooAuto

Hey wow, great ride today even with the bitterly cold temps and wind. Here’s how everything played out:

1st attack zone – Sterrett. Early in the attack zone, Morgan launched out with a classic attack. Having demonstrated success the past few weeks with the long attacks, nobody was going to let Morgan get too far ahead. Pat Allison started the chase first, and then pretty soon we had a strung out rotating pace line trying to drill Morgan back. Morgan was pushing it, though, and it wasn’t until the bottom of the long descent that we finally caught back up to him. Pat hit out next with a surprise attack. Only one person, Jesse from Louisiana, responded to the move. Everyone else saw that it was too far out. Pat realized this, too, and sat back up before the start of the kicker hill. We made it about 2/3rds of the way up the hill when there was small split in the field. Jason Kellen drilled it closing the split, right as Chris Allison attacked with about 350-400 meters to the line. I saw him go and launched out from behind Jason, closed the gap to Chris and the two of us had a small lead going around the corner. It was too far out though, and we got swallowed with Pat recovering from his earlier attack storming past us to take 1st, Will Hibberts (Alabama Masters) coming by me for 2nd, then me for 3rd, followed very closely by Ed Merritt (BBC) for fourth with Andy Maddux (Alabama Masters) rounding out the top 5.

Pat Allison (Tria Red) – 5 pts
Will Hibberts (Alabama Masters) – 4 pts + 1 cbp
Brian Toone (Tria Green) – 3 pts
Ed Merritt (BBC) – 2 pts + 1 cbp
Andy Maddux (Alabama Masters) – 1 pts + 3 cbp

2nd attack zone – Mimosa. No breakaways this week although I tried to drill it a couple of times. Morgan led out the sprint with everybody strung out behind him. The finish order was probably the reverse of the order of the riders behind him. So it ended up being Chris Allison taking 1st, Pat just behind him for 2nd, ??? for 3rd, Will Hibberts in 4th, and Jason Kellen taking the last points spot in 5th.

Chris Allison (Tria) 5 pts + 1 cbp
Pat Allison (Tria Red) 4 pts
Joseph Dabbs (?) 3 pts + 3 cbp
Will Hibberts (Alabama Masters) 2 pts + 1 cbp
Jason Kellen (Mellow Johnnys) 1 pt + 7 cbp

KOM – Karl Daly. Well, the climb is 2.2 miles long but at the end of the ride with tired legs, nobody was willing to hit out early into the headwind. Instead, we cruised up the first part of the climb at an easy talking pace. Then as we crossed under the interstate, BBC moved a couple riders to the front and picked up the pace. We rode steady across the false flat and small rollers before the next steep section. Then as we were gearing up to attack on the steep section, a couple riders crossed wheels and although nobody went down it disrupted everybody’s rhythm. So the pace stayed steady to the top of the steep section, when Jesse shifted into the big chainring and absolutely launched from the front. I was right on his wheel so I scrambled and dug deep to stay with him. By the time he motioned me to go around, we had a great gap on the rest of the group. I was inspired by the gap and hit the pace hard coming around and holding it to the top. Jesse held on for second with Justin Bynum climbing his way into third. Behind Justin, Will Hibberts snagged fourth, and I have no idea who came in 5th – somebody please email me or add to the comments below. Thanks!

Brian Toone (Tria Green) – 5 pts
Jesse (?) – 4 pts + 3 cbp?
Justin Bynum (Tria) – 3 pts + 3 cbp
Will Hibberts (Alabama Masters) – 2 pts + 1 cbp
Morgan Ramey – 1 pts + 5 cbp

Green Jersey – John Rogers. Ummmmmm, so the ride leader (me) hadn’t plugged the route into his Garmin correctly and was trying to “wing it” from Alton over to John Rogers cutting over via Brownlee Hills Rd. Well, after one dead end, another missed turn, and a HUGE rottweiler (fortunately it was behind a fence), we found ourselves back out on Hwy 78 and decided to call it a day rather than backtrack to find our way over to John Rogers. My apologies!!!

Here’s a zoomed in view of our wandering around looking for the correct road – the yellow shows our actual track. The red arrows showed what we were supposed to do!

I’m still missing a few places, but it looks like the Will Hibberts and Andy Maddux powered Alabama Masters to a team victory and the extra 2 bonus points for the day.