Its rough out in the East

Randy and myself headed out to do the Fitchburg-Longjos Classic stage race. Randy was going to do the race but a meatball took him out of commission and straight to praying to the porcelain god after stage 1 (TT). I ended up a disappointing 90 seconds or so back off the leader. This would just mean I would have to ride well on the mountain stage. The 2nd stage was a circuit race that featured about a 600m stair step climb every lap (about 3 miles) with the race being about 63 miles long. I found myself in a large breakaway of about 12 riders for many laps in the middle of the race. It looked very good at one point when we got about 90 seconds over the large main field of about 145 guys. The break was doomed when some guys stared to sit on and not take pulls as the race wore on. A field sprint up the stair step climb was imminent, I positioned myself quite well in about 10th spot. However some dude was fighting his way into the front of the field and rode into the side of my bike. This caused my chain to pop off and bend my rear derailleur hanger. I had to get off my bike and put the chain back on. Luckily, I got it back on and finished in the back to the main field so I did not loose anytime

Stage 3 was the road race that is a long 92 miles and has a difficult ascent up the feed zone climb 8 times and finished on top of the ski resort. I had to used the SRAM neutral bike during the race because my bike was unrideable due to the hanger bent beyond repair. The neutral bike was not as bad as I thought it would be, but was defiantly not as light or stiff as my Sampson Diablo. Basically rode on the well on the day but could not gain really that much time on the course. Ended up 20th on the stage about 1:20 off the winners time. Moved up into 22nd in GC. Not the result I was hoping for especially when 10th place on GC is only about 18 seconds faster than you.

I wanted to salvage the race by doing something on the final day in the crit. Needless to say, not only did that not happen but ended up hitting the deck pretty hard. I got back up and struggled in to finish with the field. It was a rough trip for both Randy and myself. It was a disappointing race however I did see some glimpses of good form that I am hoping will come around into full swing in the next few weeks.

I am doing a race this weekend part of the USA Crit series www.usacrits.com and then Nick and I are off to Under 23 nationals in seven springs, PA.

-Nate