San Diego Omnium Day II-Boulevard RR

The second day of the race was a road race. ~20 miles per lap... roughly a bowl, so 10 miles descending followed by 10 miles of mostly climbing. It sucks. I did it already once this year in April, when it was cold as shit- got dropped on the first lap of the Collegiate A race.

I was determined to get some points out of this one, though. On Saturday morning, most people figured the races would be canceled, what with 50mph winds making riding a bike, especially in a pack, pretty dangerous. The winds subsided *somewhat* and the races went on... albeit a bit late.

I wanted to be aggressive and not let the race be about the long uphill finishing climb, which is not my specialty. Our race had been cut from 3 laps to 2 laps because of the late start, and some jerkoff at the start line clued me in to what I should do to be aggressive. He yelled out to the field before we started that the first few miles, which are generally downhill, were pretty dangerous because there were high cross winds, and that we should go slow. I immediately thought, "you are an absolute pussy- I should attack from the gun".... and I did. Except there was no gun (thank god, who knows what the disorganized promoters would have shot with it). But about 20 seconds into the race I just took off. Not usually a smart move, especially on a downhill start... but with the weird conditions, the field just let me roll off.

So I rode as hard as I could for the next few miles, then settled into a pace. Once I had a moto-ref up with me, he started giving me time splits- first one was 1:27. Not all that promising I thought... if this was going to work, I want someone to bridge, and 1:27 is a lot to bridge, or I want to get a lot of leash so I can try and stay on my own. I figured, what the hell, and just kept going. Surprisingly after the first few rollers on the uphill section the gap went up to 2:00, then 2:30 when I went through the start/finish.

I kept the pace high on the next lap, just trying to keep it within my limit so I could still climb well to finish the lap. I think I did a relatively good job of this, but the field was starting to come alive a bit... at the bottom of the long uphill section, I had 1:45. That was down to 1:30 a little further up the climb. Turning onto the last section of the climb, with just a few miles (though uphill into the wind!!) I had less than a minute... the field was likely blowing up at this point, with only the strong dudes coming across to me. About halfway up this last climb, 10 guys went barelling past- I tried to tag on at first, but it was clear I had used up most of my energy already....and away they went. Thankfully, though, everyone else behind them pretty much gave up, so all I had to do was ride it in..... and I still got 10th- more points than I got from the TT!!

So going into Sunday's crit, which normally IS my speciality, I have 20 points. Though official results aren't posted online yet, so I have no idea where that puts me. The top 3 guys from the TT didn't start and/or finish the road race, so I think I should be up amongst them now... so certainly still top 10- probably top 5. Hopefully the crit can get me into the podium....