I have a long history in these races over my short cycling "career", to my memory, never worse than 3rd in either event, and i think i've done them for 4 years in a row. Granted thats been all 30+ races where there are three strong guys (me, Mike Buckley or Andres Gil, and a third random cat1 or cat2 like Jesse Moore) and ten cat 5s.

so i was looking forward to graduating to a new class and seeing new classmates, but wound up with mixed results this year. Upside was that Kyle "Super Domestique" Glerum showed up at the line with me, yay! Downside was ..... Andres Gil ..... again. At least Mike Buckley had the decency to go to Cascades and spare me the honor of getting second or third to him.

so kyle was totally dedicated to working for me in this race "I have no notions of actually winning this race" were his words at the line. our strategy was simple, when it predictably blew to shit on one of the climbs, we make sure one of us is in front of the detonation, then the story would be written as usual.

took an easy first lap (gruppo compacto) with one guy taking a first-lap flyer, then started lap two, Boots decides to go harder on the first climb. Boom! detonation. I crested the false flat of the first climb in the big ring and looked back to see who came with me. Um, nobody.... there were 4 guys struggling to get over the top and the rest of the field strung out in clumps. So I put the head down and motored across to the guy dangling off the front. seems that he was a cat 5. great.

told him to hang onto my wheel for a while to see if he recovered. No dice. after about 10 minutes of riding, Andres came across the 3 minute gap (!!) and we started rotating, our three-man group was essentially two.

we dropped him on the next climb, then i suffered a massive implosion of the third kind. Andres looks back me and says "you ok?". I replied "yeah im ok". Ten seconds later he looks back again and asks "you ok?". From 30m back i say "no, im not ok!". Boom!

Andres rolls away, and now im solo in between. I can see the field chasing in the flats, and chad timmerman comes across the 40 second gap, except he doesnt have the same pity on me and expects me to rotate. i tried a few and then ended up back in the field before the feed zone.

by the start of the 5th lap the field's down to 12 or so, andres still off the front, and zero cooperation. after trying to get guys to at least pull thru, i rolled away before the finish line and wound up solo. put the head down and pushed it (miraculous recovery!). didnt get caught until the river road, and now we're down to 6 with no Andres. Told Kyle that everyone's going to be marking me, so thats great opportunity for him. And he took it.... he found himself off the front after a failed rotation, and put his head down and put about two minutes into us by the climbs. Go Kyle!

the rest of the field looked at me but kept riding slow and steady. i wasnt going to chase so this was fine. At 5k to go an EMC rider rolls off to claim third, and I head-faked the field at 1km to go to easily win the sprint for 4th.

Kyle took second by several minutes in front of us, and Andres was several minutes in front of Kyle. Great race, and great teamwork!