Tower Crit: Pro 1 (Sufferfest!)

This race was very small and had way to many fast guys! There was only about 35 guys, but there was a full Colavita squad plus many other pros. The race was fast right from the beginning and was constantly strung out. The first 15 minutes was nothing but attacks. Did my best to stay up front and even threw in an attack, but it didn't really do much because the pack was going so fast! Eventually 9 guys got a pretty good gap and the pack just shut down. I was already pretty much blown up, but I dug in and went for it anyway. The pack let me go and I got about half way pretty easily, I started to get tired and started to worry that I might not be able to get across, but then I saw a Colavita guy also coming. We worked together and caught on after a lap. About 10 seconds after a got to the back of the group I go into the hairpin and dump it! (Idiot) With nothing but a little bit of lost skin I go to the pit and get a free lap. I jump back into the group and it was pretty mellow for a bit. I did minimal work since there were 4 0r 5 Colavita, 2 Symmetrics, Blackgrove from Toyota, Holloway and Patrick Biggs. The attacks started about half way thru the race. This made it very difficult, after about 10 minutes it was just to hard to cover stuff and the group split. I end up in the last group with Briggs and 2 Colavita guys. The Colavita guys wouldn't work so me and Briggs did the best we could. We almost caught back on to the group, but then I see Blackgroves teammate drifting back from the pack and jumps into the group. He drilled it for about 2 laps and the gap doubled, he then pulled off and quit. I think Holloway was off the front so he was trying to bring him back. I thought this was against the rules but nobody did anything. We continued to ride a pretty good pace and at this point I was content with just getting home. One of the Colavita guys fell off or quit and I led it out for the other 2 guys and rolled in for 9th. I was pretty happy with the performance and I gotta thank Brian for closing alot of gaps in the beginning of the race for me. All around great weekend for the team!

Vince