The final day of Fitchburg is always a fast downtown crit on a technical 1 mile crit course.  The race was pretty fast from the gun and was single file most of the 28 laps.  I rode mid-pack most of the time.  I was having a hard time moving up thru the 100+ racers.  Jacob got away with a bunch of laps to go and the break of 3 or so was putting time on the field.  Straub yelled to me “Jacobs up the road”  so,  I pegged it to to the front as I approached the peleton jammed on the brakes and I got swarmed, this happened for 3 laps until they were caught.  My legs felt good,  but not great.  Just lost  the snap.  Last lap,  was fast and you could sense that a crash was on the horizon.  We hit the last 2 turns and bang,  that was it.  A big pile up in the corner.  I squeeked thru without going down,  but Jacob was taken down and Rich had to stop.  Jacob broke his caad 9 frame and little road rash.  Looks like he will be ok.

After 4 days of racing,  Jacob rocked out a 15th overall place, I sucked at 43rd.

I love this race,  it is fun and very hard.  I will be back next year.

50 miles, 16 laps with a hell of a climb at the end of the lap, 16 times up a leg burner. This race is hard, I think it might be the hardest day, at least for me. It is flat out most of the time and then you have to climb 1k up a steep hill. The race was ripping fast, nothing really to dramatic, just some serious power put down to get over that hill every lap and man, it hurt! Then it would go single file for probably 1 mile of more. I was looking to survive and help Jacob make up some time on the GC. He got in a nice late race move that ALMOST stuck. Straub and I did some peleton maintaince while Jacob was up the road. The name of the game in this race is to arrive at the last corner before the hill in top 15, makes life a heck of a lot easier, I was able to do that a few time and it helped me to keep my legs for getting up the climb. Last lap was fast and we hit the finishing climb and it went fast. I finished with same time at and lost nothing which is cool, I remained in the same position on GC and Jacob moved up a spot or 2 and now sits top 15. Basically, FLSR is almost in the books. Not what I had hoped from me, but I learned a lot about my fitness and myself which is cool and we raced good as a team. Would be awesome to roll to one of these stage races with some heads.

The Cat 4’s are doing some serious damage with Chris DeCarlo claiming the mountain top finish yesterday and today staying out of trouble in the circuit race,  Seam M is holding on to 5th overall just a few seconds down from 4th,  there will be a BATTLE tomorrow on the crit course,  look for Sean and the boys take a podium spot!  Ryan Smolko and Erik Mitchell are representing hard in the 3’s,  while Kristine, Sara and Bianca are holding it up in the circuit,  Bianca had one hell of a ride in the Women’s pro/1/2 race and finished with a very select front group.  Mad props!

Peace.

Today we woke to some light rain and very cool temperatures. Not what I was hoping for going into a 94 mile road race, I like it when it is hot but the cool temps may have been a blessing in disguise. In years past this is the penultimate stage and is usually stage 3 but since the 4th of july landed on day 2 they switched the stages around because the circuit race is usually stage 2 is in downtown fitchburg. After my less than stellar TT I was a bit nervous of what was to come, I have never raced a hilly 94 mile road race, sure I have done the Hills of Somerset, but this has a ton more climbing. We drove up to the feedzone and we were greeted by the Human Zoom entourage complete with the van and tent. Everyone had their bottle nicely marked and filled with their mix or water of choice. I dropped Anna off at the feedzone, she was going to hang out there and feed when needed. Turns out she was an awesome and provided endless feeds for me and I am sure most of the Human Zoom team. Thanks Anna! I am sure there are better ways you could have spent your fourth! She was flawless, I never missed a feed, even as I blazed thru at fast speeds.

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