Last Bikereg Transaction until March

Andy Munas (notice which way he is eating the bananna), Ben Smith, a WVU rider Geoff Moy and I descended on Waitsfield, VT for the Green Mountain Stage Race.

The first stage was a hillclimb up past our humble abode of a ski lodge, to the top of "App Gap". The 3 race featured such exciting features as a nasty wreck in the fast "neutral" section and yours truly getting dropped from the leaders relatively quickly to end up in 78th. Geoff notched the biggest gain by getting 6th, while Munas was up there in the points as well. Ben featured pretty well in the 4s, somewheres in the teens. The juniors were fast as fuck, and the triathlete chicks who were climbing up the climb were hot.

Second day was a rolling circuit race. I got dropped right off the back on the feedzone climb on the first lap. I worked up into the field after a few miles thanks to the help from my brother's buddy Kyle from ECV. Each sucessive lap I got dropped less than the previous, so I was able to catch back on after the climb on the last lap relatively easily. When I got up to the front, there was a group off the front who was looking to soak up the 100pt finish bouns from the field, and my bitch Andy. So I worked with the guys in the front as much as I could. Did a few turns and the group came back somewhat. On another little riser before the finish I had trouble staying in the group, and it was all I could do to finish with the group at that point. Andy snagged a 10th place for the ever important 1 bonus point to go with the 100 finish points that stemmed from that group getting caught riiiight on the line. Geoff got dropped, as the 70 or so miles seemed to take their toll, but Ben finished up in the points again to keep his spot on GC in his race.

Third day was a nightmarish road race, on a good day. On a bad day it was freeking fun, but painful. We started in 50 degrees and pouring rain. The course featured three climbs, with the last being an absolute beast with pitches up to 24%. I thought I flatted on the flat sections before the first climb, so I stopped and got a front 404. Really I just wanted to be like Munas though, as he had broken a spoke the day before and sported the Zipp then. Motorpacing back to the group is fun, and highly reccomended. So of course on the first climb I got dropped, but descended like a son-of-a-bitch and made it back to the albeit slow moving field before the real fireworks went off. I managed to get up to Munas and Geoff and made sure they didn't need anything. Once again I got dropped on the first hints of uphillness leading up to the final two climbs. I was impressed with my effort anyway though, as I paced myself up the whole last part of the course, slowing picking off everyone I got within sight, and was only passed on the climb by some 40+ finishers who were duking out the finish.

I think I picked up a bug from somewhere on that rainy day though, as I was in absolutely no condition to race the next morning. I literatlly was running to the bathroom every 10 minutes in the morning. So I packed up my stuff and went up to the big city to watch the boys crit race. Ben was feeling allright in his race, but got caught in a crash and possibly fucked up his carbon stays. Geoff had some trouble from the getgo with a bad start and apparent lack of motivation in crits, while Munas stuck it in the group to finish off the day.

Then we drove a quarter way down the eastern seaboard to go to classes. I'm looking forward to collegiate season again...