Sport 35-44
15th place
Second race of the season: Sat morning I found myself trying to come up with an excuse not to go racing. Rear derailleur was acting up, bike didn’t feel right, still felt last week cold… wasn’t feeling too excited to go get schooled again in Sport 35-44.

Crusin'

This was also the first big venue for our Team Integrate and so there was one more good reason to be there.

Tried to convince myself this was just another ride with pretty fast guys and after a warm-up lap I put the front wheel on the start line with ‘fun’ being the key-word.
The start was brutal and immediately I was at the end of the big 22 riders group: this time the road stretch was even longer and I could clearly see the head of the group quickly pulling away. Tried to keep up with the second (maybe third) half of the group, exchanging positions few times with Al. During the second lap I started seeing the older faster guys passing me: good, last time they all passed me in the first half lap…

Photo Finish

After that it was fairly quiet, little traffic (this is what I like about Sport class), which made me slow down in the two last laps a little. That until the last 100 yards when I felt somebody attacking to the finish. I went all out but he passed me right before the line: luckily he wasn’t in my group, but it was a nice rush
Ended up with 1:40:23, still 15′ behind the lead, but better than last time… and it was fun!