Week in recap.

Jeff Cup was miserable, cold, wet and scary. I've been riding a decent amount of hills over the winter, by the way, my first complete winter on the bike. Every year I dismount in the fall and return in the late spring, typically Tysons being my first race. I'm usually suffering at Tysons.
I registered at the last moment on Jeff Cup as every day when I checked weather.com, it said that there was a 40% chance of rain that day. So I delayed... Thursday morning, I checked again and it said that there was only a 10% chance of rain. Wooohoo... I registered with about 20 minutes before it closed. I didn't want to race in the rain. I've done too many rides this winter in the sleet, rain and light snow to know that it's not worth racing in that weather. Well, I was in no luck. As we drove up it started to sleet. We heard pinging on the windshield and then checked accuweather.com on my smartphone...it looked like we were on the edge of some wet stuff. Mostly snow and sleet. By the time we arrived it was coming down harder and in larger chunks. Like many of the others there, my carbon wheels were making a racket, I thought initially I popped a spoke. I was thinking that the race might be cancelled, however it was not the case. The thing which scared me the most was the GS Lancaster rider with the Audi/Cannondale bike.. what a racket those brakes caused! Of course I tried to stay away from that rider as he continued to use his brakes as often as he could on the downhills, around corners, etc... I was just waiting for him to slide out. It was so loud that it caused me to put my brakes on more often just because I was thinking that there might be a reason to do so. Well, after a while I finally tried to get some distance on him, however he continued to be there with me for some reason. I think I finally warmed up by the 3rd lap and felt comfortable, but then we got neutralized because the CAT123's were coming through. Well, nothing like getting cold again. Obviously we were not working too hard compared to those guys. I attacked a couple of times, one time on the hill, however no one came with me, so I let up. Finally at the last 2km the pace picked up tremendously, I was marking Art Brown much of the time, however at this point, his team went to work. One guy moved in on his wheel, and caused me to lose some distance with him, then his train accelerated forward and I couldn't follow as someone slowed down causing me to be caught up in the middle, both sides went around me and I must have dropped back about 20 to 30 riders. I finally was able to get to the right side and started to join the quick pace, it was too late as I saw that I was about 200 meters away from the finish, then I stomped on it, passing someone who I thought would lead me out well, however he didn't have any gas anymore. I was extremely lucky as everyone seemed to move towards the left and get caught up in traffic. Two bike widths was clear on the right where I was making up good placing and ended up an amazing 6th after being about 30th or more back. It's always better to be lucky than good. Art Brown's ABRT team did a great job of protecting him and leading him out for the win.
I was pretty happy about my performance as I was cold wet and felt a bit crampy during the last lap. I wasn't too tired or sore the next day, so obviously riding during the winter helped tremendously.
Monday, I took the day off.
Tuesday, I got out late for the noon Hill ride in Arlington. I didn't see anyone one out there so I did a slower and shorter ride. Plus my derailleurs weren't working well. Probably because of the crap embedded in the moving parts from the rainy ride. I cleaned the bike a bit after Jeff Cup, however probably didn't do it justice.
Wednesday, lukily I commuted in to work.. so I got a little bit of riding in. It was a busy day at work.
Thursday... Pete Lindeman sent out an email about an easier ride than the usual Tuesday ride. I knew it would rain in the afternoon, so luckily I got out and made an effort to go. Well...it could have been a hard ride as Josh Frick and Ken Young showed up.. so did Simon (he usually destroys us on the Wed Thrasher Hill ride), but we chatted a bit on the ride and it was just a nice relaxing tempo ride.
Friday, drove to work and left the bike at home... had a couple glasses of wine and relaxed.
Saturday.. it should rain... so no biking.
Sunday... race day at Tysons. I'll be looking out for Roger Friend, Art Brown, Ramon Benitez, Bryan Vaughn, Bill Gros, and several more. Those guys will be the ones making the moves. We'll see if Roger can ride away again this year.