King College

Well this past weekend was the King College Tornado Cycling Classic. The weekend consisted of a road race on Saturday, and a crit on Sunday. I love this road race course. It is the same course as this years state road race in July. The course is mostly rolling with a stair step hill in the middle. As the course goes on, the hills get steeper and steeper. The last 5K are somewhat flat.
The race gets started, and nothing too exciting happens. About 4 or 5 miles in, the first notable comes. I decide to attack and see what happens. I go with a hard acceleration. I am solo for maybe a mile, then a group catches me. The group is about 7 or 8 riders and 3 of those riders are on my team. The group begins looking around at each other and my teammate, Jeff Mcgrane attacks (ends up soloing the last little bit for the win.) Mcgrane attacks and some Asheville guy goes with him. My group gets caught. The race goes on, and towards the end of the first lap, people start getting froggy. Some attacks start and sure enough a group of 6 get up the road. I have 2 teammates in this break. I decide what the heck, I'll bridge. So again, I attack with a hard acceleration, and with a few minutes of bridging, I am in the chase group. My bro Stefan was up in the move. Having 3 out of 7 guys in the group, and 1 guy in the leading group, we decide 1 of us should sit on. I volunteer. So, I have 2 guys pulling, and 1 up the road. Fair right? Not according Adm Ray (strongest guy in the race with no teammates.) He begins to fall back to where I am and I immediately know what he's going to say. PULL. So before he evens says a word, I tell him, "I've got 2 guys pulling, and 1 up the front." He then begins to tell me the guy Jeff is with, is a good sprinter. O brother give me a break, his teammates didn't seem to think he had a chance cause the whole race they were attacking. I simple tell Adam Ray sorry, I'm not pulling. Adam Ray and I begin falling back to the main field. As we are going back to the field, he tells me, "Then I'm going to attack the S*** out of on the next climb." My response is, "Have fun, cause one of my guys will be right there with you."
As the race goes on, that group was caught. Another lap passes and Adam Ray attacks. My teammate Jason Jeansonne is the first to react. Then one more person attacks and I go with that person. Soon enough, another chase group has formed. Again roughly 6 riders, I have 2 other teammates in this move. Out of this move, Adam Ray attacks again. Jason responds with another Asheville guy. The race goes on and in my group is A teammate, an Asheville guy, and I. After some faulty team tactics (that I can assure you are going to be fixed) The race comes to an end. The result... Jeff Mcgrane 1st, Jason Jeansonne 3rd or 4th, Tim Valentine 6th, me 8th, John Hart 9th, and my bro Stefan 10th. A pretty dominate result for my team. Due to this extra long race recap, I will post a crit recap later. So look for that later tonight. For now, I got to get ready for work.
The Crow