JayLap Road Race

Sunday, August 7th

Bergen Hills, Alberta
75 kms (3 laps of ~25km), including several rolling hills, and one major hill that ends 500m from the finish.

Well, another long-ass drive to a remote village in Alberta.
Mike and I both contemplating why we put ourselves through this. I guess that's what you get after 2 races in one day.

Well, we start with a nice leisurely pace as predicted; some tired legs in the group.
Speed Theory gang discussed having a breakaway attempt early on and having the rest of the team protect it. And that's exactly what happened. Derrick (don't know the last name, but was riding a sweet S5), Andrew Paul (Bike Bros), and another rider got away less than half-way through the first lap, and ST was making no attempts to reel them in.
It was very windy and I was confident they would not last.

Well, lap 1 came and went, and so did lap 2. Niklas was taking several pulls at front, as well as ST, but we weren't really gaining on the break.
I did notice one of them pop off way up ahead.

Then Tom came by and said they were planning to strike another attach on the 2nd last turn, and if I felt good should I join them.
Well, I did as I'd been sitting pretty in the back for the majority of the race.
I didn't quite make it before the turn and then spent a lot of energy trying to catch and then hang on. Ian Watts was living up to his last name and soon popped me off.
Just as I was contemplating retirement, another chase group caught up to me.
It contained Tom Kenny, Darcy G, another ST rider, TCR, and one other older gentleman in a grey jersey.
That's all I needed. A short respite, and I was back pulling. Gaining on chase 1.
Quick rest then back to the front.
Almost caught the 6 in chase 1 right at the bottom of the last big hill when they attacked each other.
It was headwind and steep grade, and my ABA point dreams came to an end.
At this point I was racing for 10th I think.
Get to the top of the hill and there's only me, grey guy, and the big ST guy that first lead the chase 2 to me.
He looked like a strong guy, and if he made it up the hill, he could probably do a good sprint.

Having pre-rode this part beforehand, I knew it was a long way to the finish in that headwind, so I tucked in behind grey dude until 50m past the big green tree, or 200m from the finish.
ST was on my back but I spun around grey dude and sprinted to glory. That is if you consider 9th place glorius...

Not a bad race overall. I felt good and only when faced with repeated and unrelenting attack did I fall.
Guess I should have been closer to the action when it happened... again!