Merco 35+ RR

I wanted the experience of doing the P/1 race in the crit the day before, and it was fun, but it really didn't help my form for the RR on Sunday. I was racing the day on stumps, is what it felt like.

There was a large group of riders from Specialized, MS, and to a lesser extent, EMC. Clover and Sierra as well. There was activity from the gun more or less, and I tried to cover most dangerous attacks. With a little under 1.5 laps to go (we did 3 laps total), Bennet and Hutchinson were 1-2 attacks and that looked to be trouble. Eventually Hutch got away with Bubba and McKinley and with only me trying to keep the pace up with five Specialized sitting on my wheel, they quickly built up 45 seconds on us.

With a lap to go, EMC threw everything into the chase, with me and one or two others helping. Eric was in there too. We got it down to 20 seconds with 5 to 10K to go. I assume that's why Hutch ditched Bubba and McKinley, but maybe he's just that hard. But with 5K to go the pace wasn't all that high, with no particular team driving the pack, allowing Hutch to keep his lead. It was a 4 second gap at the finish line.

Brian did another great job of muscling the final Kilo to get the field sprint, and 2nd overall.