Tour de Ephrata

Its really been much too long since I last posted on here. Not even a simple update. I'm ashamed.

Its been a hectic last few weeks with seemingly bad news and bad results all over the place. Its finding the high points in your misfortunes that makes you stronger though. Its been tough, but I have been able to find some gain in the losses.

Tour de Ephrata was last weekend. I have a lot of mixed emotions on how this race went down. Me and Tony Abate went big on a risky breakaway in the 54mi RR, 25mi from the finish. It was a good move that stayed away for 22mi until I dropped from lack of energy. That last 3mi was a slow spin to finish in an estimated last place.

I was on unfamiliar ground in the TT up Pain Mountain. No Aero helmet, no TT bike, no Aero bars, no skin suit, no race wheels, just my usual road setup. With this in mind, I went out there to have fun and hurt myself on some climbing. I got a solid workout in and surprisingly put myself in the GC with a 10th place ride.

The downtown crit 4 hours later is where things started to go wrong. Everything was off to a great start. No rain, clear idea of the course, good warmup, and plenty of energy. Before the first lap was through, me and Tony had gone away again. First we had 10s, then 15, then 20, then 30 and even up to 35. However, as a de ja vu of yesterday, we were sucked into the peloton with a mere 2 laps to go. On the final lap I crashed out hard after great positioning that would have set me up nicely for the sprint.

After that weekend I was left with a lot of painful road rash, a swollen right ankle, and the familiar, agonizing question of "What if?" What if me and Tony hadn't gone on those breaks together? What if I hadn't crashed? What if I had a TT setup and a better idea on how to manage that ride? Inevitably, reality finally kicked in and I realized that me and Tony had gained an enormous amount of respect from what we had done together. Any rider can sit in the back of a group with the wind up front. But it takes a lot of guts and strength to make the move(s) that we did, and for that the weekend was a success.

Photo Credit: Anthony Skorochod