In the books...

Paskenta 2009 has now come and gone, and I have to say it was a nice ride, but a bit of a brute for sure. The forecasted 5 mph winds became 10-20 mph winds, which served to rip apart the field from about 300+ to just 30 after less than half of the 100 miles. The winds were howling out of the north, which meant strong crosswinds on nearly every part of the course, which runs mainly east-west. The field split into echelons early and this all added up to no rest for anyone. So here's a brief play-by-play:

We take off at 8am sharp, with a huge field of probably between 300 and 400 riders, and for the first 20 miles or so I stayed mostly hidden out of the north wind near the front of the pack. Things started to speed up a bit after about an hour or so, but everything was still staying together in the established front group of about 100. Things went on at a moderate pace until after Corning, which was about 35 miles in or so. When we got out of town and started to get slammed with the crosswinds, the strong riders knew it was their time to thin out the pack. By this time I was comfortable, but the pace went way up for about 15 minutes and I found myself caught out a bit. I found myself in the second echelon, as I wasn't paying much attention when things hit the fan. Before I knew it I was cranking out over 400 watts for a while, and feeling a kind of suffering that I haven't felt since last August. I didn't miss it at all...
I calmed down and waited patiently for things to come back together a bit, and sure enough when the carnage was over, the first two echelons had converged to form one lead group of about 30-40. We rode along at a decent pace, with Jesse Moore dangling off the front on several occasions. I got to the front leading into the infamous gravel section, and no one really seemed to challenge me for my perfect spot at second wheel. What a weird feeling for someone who's used to racing against pros that will do anything short of knocking you off your bike to get the sweet spot. Jesse and teammate Adam Switters were off the front a bit going into the gravel, but I wasn't worried, as we still had about 45 miles to go at this point. We had a ripping tailwind on the gravel, and I had a good time flying along at 30-40 mph around the gentle bends, with the back wheel sliding about. The monster that was the 5-mile gravel sector gobbled up most of our lead group, and we came out of the dirty mess with just 7 riders, and another 3 or 4 up the road including Jesse and Switters. I wasn't too worried about the break, but only a couple of the guys in our group were willing to work. After about an hour of steady chasing, we (mostly me and Judd Van Sickle of DBC) had caught the break and so there were about 10 of us in the lead going into the final 10 miles. I was feeling pretty cooked at this point, and thinking of the training camp I had to go to the next day and all through the next week. I played it conservative and let Jesse go up the road again with one other rider. The only trouble was that it left his teammate Switters in the chase group with me, watching my every move. Sure enough, when I finally worked it up to take off in pursuit of Jesse, Switters was right on me, and he stayed there all the way to the line. I was statistically screwed, and I knew I had no way of winning with about 5 miles to go. If I caught Jesse, Switters would easily take the win, as he had been just sitting on my wheel for the whole last 10 miles. If I didn't catch Jesse, then, well, of course he would win. I just kept on riding tempo and resigned myself to third place, and that's exaclty how I did. I actually felt pretty good at the end, so it was tough to be in a tactical position where I couldn't really race for the win, but all things considered, I would say I felt like my fitness is coming along quite well for this time of year. I would really have loved to take home that trophy for the second year in a row, but you know what they say - TBR (that's bike racing) - as in, sometimes bike races just turn out that way.

OK well I gotta go to dinner here at training camp in Santa Rosa. I will have more for you about how things are going here later on. Things are pretty busy but very exciting to say the least.