There were two races in the P12 event, the race to the start line and the race to the finish line... the lucky ones got second row starting positions, the rest, not so lucky. As it were, most if not all of the Safeway guys got within the first three rows of the start, and had great position going into the "neutral" lap.

Starting whistle, then rollout to follow the moto. Once the red paddle flipped to green, race was on! Right off the bat at the top of the climb there was some pushing around and a rider in front of me had to brake-check. I slowed a bit, then BAM someone's wheel rammed into my right calf and brushed my derailleur cable, rolling down my sock and stripping a bunch of skin off my leg. Also noticed after the race that a nice chunk of my derailleur cable was torn. Nice burn mark on the leg now.

Followed wheels up the climbs and tried to move up. Then the third lap Levi hit it hard on the climb and the field shattered. Fourth time up someone else hit it (Dan?), and then fifth time up the elastic stretched then snapped. A chunk of 12 or so riders got off the front, i was a bit far back and couldn't quite get across (got maybe within 30m before the downhill), and ended up burning several matches. Next lap i used the small ring.

After all that, we had 68 minutes of racing left.

A group of about 25 riders formed with Dan, Jeff and I in it. The pace was hard and fast, or so we thought until Lance blew thru us with three riders in tow. Each successive group that lapped us (Horner and Levi once then Lance again) ended up shattering a few guys off the back of our group as guys tried to match the pace. Within about a half hour we were down to 12 or so, with Dan and I doing what we could. We started to catch and pass riders from the lead group, then our race turned tactical. Andres Gil and Reaney were the main instigators and biggest threats to get lose (along with Dan and I).

Ended up working Reaney over until he got dropped, then on the last lap it was my turn to drop the hammer. Took off from the bottom and went 100%, drawing out Dan and Andres. Kept it hot all the way up to and over the top, then Dan came around with Andres in tow. They finished the deal all the way to the line, with Dan coming around Andres for who knows what place. I came in a few seconds later with nothing but empty space behind me.

We think we got top twenty, not sure as the field was shattered from the third lap and we were lapping riders by the fourth.

Stats: 175 bpm average for 90 minutes, small ring only once, top speed 51 mph. Lapped Phipps twice.

Thanks to Bruce, Susan and friends for letting us kick it in front of their house and use their bathroom. The crowd (about 15,000 strong) was AWESOME, the energy was off the charts, and getting crushed by lance was rather fun.

WTF was fonseca doing in that race? Seen videos of him shadowing Lance around the course in various states of lapped-ness.

~~ Boots.