Avon RR

We had a perfect day for a race yesterday as the sun came out right before the start.The first 5 miles was a neutral rollout through town which was I really liked.As soon as the rollout ended it was a typical group ride pace for a while then some young guy named Jake B. and a super tall rider with a Minnesota Gopher jersey took a flyer but me and Sam had it covered.The real action lit up when we hit the big climb and Sam took the lead setting a nice pace up the hill.I took over for the last quarter and we had split the field down to about 10 riders.On the back side of the hill it was a long downhill.I wanted to keep things rolling to open up the gap more.It took a bit to organize a pace line but we got the hang of it after a while.Alot of the new young ambitious riders I noticed aren't very fluid in rotating as they would surge hard when they hit the front or don't move over resulting in guys losing wheels or getting caught without a draft.Then everyone gets fried and unorganized.When we finally turned with the wind we hit the rollers and shelled more riders.We were now down to 5 of us.It was perfect.Everyone settled down and we ran a pace line all the way with everyone rotating constantly. Jake did take a couple more flyers but we just let him sit out there keeping him at 50 meters. when we turned east with like 5 miles to go he slowed on one of the hills and everyone was back together.The main field was nowhere in sight so we kind of recovered for the sprint.The last 1.5k to the finish was in the wind and as soon as we hit the final corner Jake went out and no one responded so I jumped and brought Sam and another guy along back to his wheel.Now we had 4 for the final sprint.When I got back on Jakes wheel I should have just whipped around him and gone for it but I kind of sat up for a draft,then sam counter attacks right away with 200 m.Jake jumps on it and my legs are screaming bloody murder at this point.But me,Jake and another guy make it past sam.Jake slowly edges away while I see Sams wheel comming in between mine and the other riders.Right at the line I surge te bike out in perfect sprinting fashion taking 2nd place by just inches.Just like the Ore-to-shore finish.It was sweet.Sam took 4th.The race official that was behind us the whole race told us he has seen alot of races and this one was one of the best,especially for cat5.He was very impressed with our organization.
I know its only cat 5 but after the way I've been feeling the past 2 weeks,I like to see I'm starting to come around again.After the race we waited in vain for the prize money for 4 hrs.We did have some company but thats a different story.I just hope they'll mail it.-E.O