What a great day for TAI to kick off our Memorial Day Weekend of racing. Like last year our plan was to put a rider or two in the break and then control the field the rest of the day until they give up. Ryan was very aggressive early and often trying to get away through the first 1.5 laps. Finally, and not shortly after he said “Nothing is getting away” did he roll off the front with Austin Line. The group was pretty aggressive in trying to bring them back getting as close as about 20 seconds at one time and then let up. Towards the back side of Lap 2 two riders made the jump and Doug was near the front. I yelled at him to “GO”, wanting him to cover and not let them bridge up. Doug took this as something else all together as I yelled “NOOOOOOOOOO” thinking he would drag the field right up to Ryan. Well the group didn’t do much and they watched Doug ride away. Doug wound up bridging to Ryan and Austin into Lap 3. Ryan finally came back late on Lap 4, but he did a fine job of being aggressive. The group tried to organize a number of times to no avail and finally gave up on Lap 5. One final attempt at a break late in the race found Rob and I with two other riders away from the field for about ½ a lap. I was more than content no working making them pull me around. What was left of the field came back together and the jockeying for the final sprint began. Ryan took to the front with about 5k to go pulling us into the nasty crossing headwind with Rob sitting 2nd wheel. At 1k, Chris rolled by me setting up the TAI Train for the final sprint. All 3 of them put a great effort out bringing me to 200 meters. I knew the sprint was going to be hard because of the head wind so I followed the Capa-Soraz guy coming around him with about 50m left getting him by a wheel at the line. Great racing by all on a tough day!,?P>
