Oxbow Spring Classic

Hold it up!...Yeeeeeaaaaa!

With a successful first race of the season under the belt, it builds alot of confidence in that your on the right track in training.Me and Sams fitness is doing supper right now and I hope we will only get stronger.It was a perfect day for a race today,mid to upper 70's and sunny.The wind was out of the SE at 20 mph which meant a headwind on most of the climbing.
We started in the B class which had some good talent.I don't know any roadie names yet but there were some pretty fast guys.The pace started out fast all the way to the "Oxenberg" climb.I was sitting in the top 20 and Sam was a few places ahead.Right at the base of the climb a rider goes down in front of me.How you crash on a climb is beyond me.I didn't go down but I came to a stop and struggled to clip back in on a 24% climb.(Ben Moore took the KOM with Sam being 2nd)At the top of the climb there was about a 20 man break ahead of me so I just had to pin it and put in a genormous effort to bridge the 100 yard gap.It was a good move because no one came with me and that lead group stuck the whole race.When I got on the back a few guys were dropping so I had to constantly go around to catch the next wheel.Luckily this whole time there was a tail wind or I might have never seen the front.When I finally got to the front Charlie Farrow was driving the pace pretty good and I finally settled into race mode.The pace settled down a bit here and there but there was about 10 of us that were really working well at the front.When we came around to the "Oxenberg" for the second lap I was about 5th at the bottom of the hill but felt pretty good on the climb and crested the hill in 2nd behind Ben Moore once again.Ben was on his new Top fuel and had better gearing for that climb.I was wishing I had a granny gear in the front at that moment.Anyway,that climb split the group down to 10 guys in the front.We had droped Charlie due to a flat and Jenna Zander struggled to bridge with Dan Cleary for miles but just couldn't do it in the headwinds. Ben was on fire just pounding on the front with his mtb.(it must run in the family).The roads were supper dusty and some sections had some deep gravel with only a couple good lines.On the last long downhill to the base of the finishing climb,the bigger guys on road bikes made attack after attack reaching speeds of 45mph.Me,Sam,and Ben just wanted to stay in contact to the base of the climb.Ben and his friend made the final attack with me, Sam and a few other guys in tow on the short flat before the "Oxenberg".At the bottom I was right behind Ben but as soon as my legs started to feel the 24% they said "I don't think so". I put her in reverse it seems as everyone came around me. Its all good though because Sam found a little kick at the end and took 2nd by only a wheel! And I barely made it up the hill in 7th. Everyone else agreed that the GP guy kind of sandbagged it the whole time because he sat at the back the most of the race.No one remembers seeing him on the front pulling.Oh well,thats road racing I guess. I had fun and I'm anxious to see what I can do on a nice light race bike instead of a 28lb beater.-E.O.