Rocky Mount Stage Race, Day 1

Keith and I were on the road at 4:30 am to make the drive up to Shreveport /Bossier City for the annual Rocky Mount Stage Race, and now, at 10 pm, I'm starting to get a bit sleepy. The only thing keeping me up is the huge portions of tacos and chips I had for dinner. Since I was riding the 45+ age group race today, we didn't start until 11:30, by which time it was nice and warm. Our group was not very big -- maybe 20 or so -- but is seemed to include quite a bit of horsepower nonetheless. The 35+ group that had left ten minutes earlier was larger. We had our new team kits today, fresh out of the plastic bags, and although they looked really good, I wish I could have run mine through the wash once because like most new clothes, it didn't breathe too well. Anyway, our road race was pretty fast and animated. David Hyde spent some time solo off the front, and then Tom Bain and I did the same, and when we got to the hot spot sprint, which was on the top of a fairly significant climb, Tom took the 1st place points and I took second. Halfway through the final lap David and one of the LaS'port guys rolled off the front and opened a decent gap. I was a few riders back in the pack, just behind Tom, and I was starting to get nervous about it because the front of the pack did not seem to be responding. I craned my neck to try and get a good look up the road, and just as I did, I saw Tom doing the same. When I saw him slide over to the right and shift to a higher gear, I knew immediately that he was going to bridge, so I latched onto his wheel like white on rice as he hammered across the gap. Just before we caught, I came around and kept pushing the pace as we came past the two breakaway riders. Right away all four of us realized we had a good combination that could make this break work. We quickly had a nice fast rotation going and started opening the gap. After making the last turn, there are only three or four miles left to the finish. I was hoping we could keep the rotation going all the way to the final climb, but David had other ideas and attacked hard after I had taken a pull. I really had to dig deep to keep from being dropped, but of course at that point the smooth rotation pretty much came to an end. By now we could see the last hill. The first part of the climb was done at a fairly smooth pace, but when we hit the 200-meter mark, Tom jumped with me on his wheel. My right calf started to cramp (it's been giving me trouble for a few weeks now), so I never did stand up and try to come around Tom. I ended up 2nd to Tom at the finish and our group ended up over a minute up on the rest of the field. The evening Time Trial, which was only 2 miles long, was nonetheless pretty painful thanks to a significant headwind the whole way. I'm pretty sure that TT moved me down to 4th, but I haven't seen the actual results yet.