Mostly saw this race from the back of the field. 4.5 hour drive from sea-level Fresno to 6000' Truckee, straight to registration to get a race number, back to the truck to change, then right to the line for the starter's hand-cannon (anyone else thought that "pistol" was a bit loud?). Clearly there was not a solid warmup routine in play. Dodged the stack-up in the hairpin turn on the first lap, then spent the rest of the time sucking wind at the back and closing gaps. Managed to scratch out a 33rd place out of maybe 60 riders. Terrific start, eh.

Started with a better feeling and warmup for this one. This race was characterized by endless start delays and a crazy "neutral rolling stop start" where they told us to take a parade lap, then as we approached the start line the hand-cannon fired off and RACE ON. A serious WTF??? moment. Anyway, spent the first half of the race trying to get past the knot of riders in the middle of the field, but with 10 turns, tight alleyways and streets, and blistering fast speeds, it took a lot for this non-crit rider to move up.

Well, not sure if i was moving up towards the front or the back was moving closer to me as riders fell off. Anyway, my one moment in this one came down on the last lap (out of the view of everyone), three guys off the front, and the rest of the field was bunched up on the tailwind, nobody wanting to put the nose into the wind. Betonte in the red jersey was looking like a porkchop to a pack of hungry dogs, the field was ready for the pack sprint. I hit it hard on the right, took the front, and punched it thru the crosswind, up the climb, up the next climb, into the headwind, then and dropped Gregg off at the top of the switchback downhill descent. Nobody's going to come around him with that setup, and he delivered the field sprint with panache.

This course looks easy on paper, but mix in the altitude and steeps, ended up being a leg breaker. Field started out way fast thru the Northstar village, and 30 meters into the race a rider went head-over-heels right in front of me, brake check, and now i'm at the back. Great. Fought to the front to see Dan taking on the entire field and Sayers. Hit after hit went off the front, response, chase, attack, kick, sit up, punch it. It was all going down. I followed an attack by Sayers and we got a good gap, but he was clearly not hitting on all cylinders. Nearly dropped him with a hard pull on the false flat downhill, and we got caught.

After the knife fight wound down, Bubba was off the back with a flat, Sayers was out, and there was about 20 guys left. We had Angermann and Demarchi off the front, 3 Safeway sitting in the remains of the field (Dan, Betonte and I), this setup looked real real good. Andres gave it a go at the top of the climb, I gave chase and the race was on. Took a bad turn in the hard right-hander at the top of the course and rode myself across traffic and right off the course into a ditch. Didn't go down but it took a bit to dig out, and ended up chasing the rest of the race (about 3 laps). Solo'd in behind the field, a bummer as I was feeling real good and was ready to crush on the last laps.

Unfortunately we chowed in the 35s, but fought back with two top 10s in the overall. It was the 45s where we cleaned up. Great hard riding by Gregg and solid performance from Pasco gave us 1st and 3rd in the overall. Nice job from everyone.