ESG Day 3

Criterium, This was a points race meaning sprints every 5 laps and If you had no points, you were sprinting for your place after all the riders who already had points. Made for a tough race with 40 laps and 8 sprints. As usual the western team controlled pretty much the entire race. We had some awesome sprint leadouts from Ben J. , for Adam G. We were still on 9 riders cause Wayner was still sick but feeling better. I pretty much shuffled to the front and to the back the whole race, not really doing much other than protecting my teammates and taking them to the front. At one point 2 nyc riders were off the front, I was told to ‘go to the front’ so I did that and launched myself across to them, well about halfway I ran out of gas, but to my surprise I looked back and there were 5 western riders right on my wheel ready to finish the job. It was a good feeling to now that they had my back right away. Coming to the final sprint I had positioned myself right up into 6th place. I was right were I needed to be, around corner 1, then around corner 4th and 5th go down, I swerve hard and I am slammed in the back by 7th, but I don’t panic. Without losing to much speed I hop the curb, thru the grass and proceed to sprint for 100 meters right down the sidewalk, back onto the grass and off the curb again. I tacked onto the back of the group and made it in with them. A few other riders didn’t fare so well. I know Mike M. tried to follow me but did a face plant as he ran into some lawn furniture. This is where all those mt. biking skills came in pretty handy. It was a pretty insane scenario, but it was pretty fun. Adam G ended up taking the gold for the 3rd year in a row and Ben J took another bronze. Our team fared well with quite a few riders in the top 10.