Durand Road Race Recap

Pretty much got what I expected today in the 1/2/3 race at Durand, a reality check. Position was everything as it guttered out immediately from the start. I let myself get to far back, and spit out in the first cross-wind section. Several of us regrouped, and chased hard. Painman, Matt Williams, Micah Moran, Chris Ripp, and a few others were in our group. We kept on the gas, waiting for the field to relax, but it never really did. Williams and Ripp were doing a lot of work. We kept picking up stragglers and our group grew to a dozen or so riders. One rider of note was Pete Maxwell, who contributed greatly to our chase. All of a sudden, Dan Casper was with us. He had gotten dropped right at the start, and had been chasing for 2 laps. Very impressive.

When Casper caught us, we were closing in on the field. We gunned it a bit, and our group blew apart. Casper, Williams, and a couple others made the front group, but I lost contact with those 4 at the wrong time, and didn't make it. Now it was just Chris Ripp and I chasing. We caught up to Homme and Hollywood at the top of the climb. Hollywood was waiting for his girlfriend, but Homme joined us. We were all pretty baked, and pretty much turned off the chase, but kept the pace up as best we could. We picked up GP rider Gunter from Germany at the start of the 4th lap. Homme fell off the pace on the headwind section, and Gunter lost contact on the climbs. Just Chris and I were left.

Chris was out of water, and stopped to refuel before heading out on the last lap. Suddenly I'm solo. I just keep it rolling as best I can. I can see a small group about a mile or so up the road. I knew it was the 1/2/3 autobus, because everyone else had finished by then. I decided to do my best to try and catch them before the finish. They came back slowly, but I was able to catch some of them (keep in mind they had clearly shut it down).

The story from up front was there was a break of 5, followed by the main pack. The break of 5 became 4, and Doug won. Big surprise. Timmer scored 3rd, good on ya mate.

A good hard race, and I guess I got roughly what I expected. I wish I would have played my cards a bit differently and moved up farther so I didn't have to chase all day. But, I know I'm not alone in that wish.