Lincoln Plating 07

I first did this race two years ago and found it a really well run and fun race. I was eager to not attend the AST crit so I decided to head out to Lincoln, Nebraska for a quick weekend race. The drive wasn't all that bad either way minus some EPIC winds on the way home. I thought for sure we were going off the road a few times.

The TT was what it should be, hard. Scott Tietzel had a really good ride in 4th with Ross and I a bit off the pace. After a fast trip back to the hotel for a shower and a bite to eat we were back out at the race site for the road race. It followed the trend of RR's this year and was shortened due to high winds and slow times. The first attack detonated and came back without anyone chasing. The next break had HART strongman Wes Hartman in it so we had to chase with a few other guys. After a lap and a half of chasing it was back together again with everyone looking a bit ragged already. The 30-50mph gusts were pretty draining. Dan Porter was dangling off the front of the group so I bridged up him and it looked like the field was letting us go. Unfortunately, on the next cross wind stretch the other big HART strongman Randy Reichardt bridged across to us. I was pretty bummed not to see Tietzel on his wheel. Because of Randy place behind Scott in the TT and the fact I was pretty cooked after the long chase I decided to sit on and let the HART teammates ride Randy into the leaders jersey if they could.

They did just that AND had me on the ropes a couple of times along the way. I managed to attack and shed Porter a few Km from the finish. The downside of that was that I had tow Randy to the line or risk getting 3rd if Porter caught back on. The move gave Randy the stage win and moved the 3 of us into the top 3 on GC. That's the way it stayed through the next days rather moist circuit race. Scott and Ross respectively ended up 7th and 19th

A big thanks goes out to race promoter John Lefler and sponsor Lincoln Plating. John's dedication to the sport is impressive and he puts on a GREAT event. It would be nice if all the people who complain about the office park crit problem in Colorado (specifically AST) would skip those in favor of races like Lincoln plating. We left at noon on Friday and got back @10 on Sunday. The trip was well worth the time and money for a such an action packed event.

March/April

After the epic Cateye road race a week of good training brought the Koppenberg Circuit. This race has always been fairly straight forward, follow the strong guys as long as you can. I did just that and not much more, ending up at the back of the lead group. Not-so-Mini-Phinney made one heck of an impression on me there, that kid appears to have ALL the goods to make it big in bike racing if he wants to. It will be entertaining to watch his career unfold.

After a weather weekend off of racing Beth and I headed to Texas for some family functions, including my nephew's birthday. I managed to race EARLY the next morning but was feeling the 3+ hrs I had spent in the jumpy castle the day before. It was an experience I haven't had in a while, I was there solo and there were several large teams present. Just like CO those teams just kept attacking until an acceptable group got off. I missed that group so decided to sit, chill and see what I could do at the end. The break had 2:30 at the start of the last climbing stretch. I tried to bridge across and got within 30 seconds before hitting a long headwind stretch that ended my attempt. A few guys came up to me and we road together until the finish. The racing scene seemed very similar to Colorado, although it was nice not to have a sizable portion of the pro peleton on hand to dose out pain.

Next up was quick weekend trip to Nebraska to avoid the dreaded AST crit.