Mt. Pleasant Recap

Mt. Pleasant weekend was scheduled to be a 60 minute +2 lap criterium Saturday and a 46 mile road race Sunday.  So far the weather this summer has been very warm, this weekend would be no exception.  Saturday my race was schedule to start at 330 PM, kind of nice for a change to have a later start.  The only downside was the sun was beaming down and on the roads the heat index was 90-100°.  The crit started out fast and furious on a .9 mile circuit in downtown Mt. Pleasant.  On the end of the first lap I got caught up near an accident.  Since it caused me to drop to the back I decided to just park there for the next 30 minutes and relax.  With 30 minutes to go I finally started to carve my way through the pack.  However I have to say this race was one of the worst displays of bike handling I have seen.  We would just hammer it on the straights to just sit up and brake in the corners.  These corners didn't need braking. I also felt like that guy in office space and always picked the wrong traffic lanes.  I would work my way up some then get caught in a bad line and lose several spots.   It was frustrating, but I just keep out of the wind and tucked in the pack.  So after 60 minutes there was just two laps to go.  I made my push to work my way through the pack.  On the last lap going into the last corner I was sitting in about 23rd.  Ideally I would have liked a position further up but I felt like I could still sprint out a top ten.   Oh well, non of that mattered because two guys in front of me wrecked.  I had to check up and take an inside line and lost a lot of speed.  I sprinted to the line and settled for 21st, I was a little disappointed.

Sunday was a much different day, since I wasn't happy with the previous day I was very motivated.  Race start was around 1015 AM, and it was overcast but muggy.  Since the race was only 46 miles it was going to be fast.  In the first 10 miles I don't think there was a single time I was going less then 25 MPH and constantly went over 30.  It was a home race for one of my team mates so the goal for the day was to shut down any attacks and try to set him up to get the win.  So I spent a good majority of the time working up front pacing or shutting down attacks.  I even put in three attacks myself.  With 4 miles to go the Michigan challenge leader for our category attacked hard, no one put up a chase.  So I muscled my way up to the front to drive the pace up.  I killed myself for the next two miles, but I shut down his attack.  My work was done so I just cruised to the finish line in the back of the pack.  I placed one spot ahead of the Michigan Challenge leader I shut down.  For my efforts though my team mates finished good in the sprint finish.  We took 1st and 2nd in the Omnium, the only downside is the didn't award anything this year for that.

Next up is the State Time Trial

Crit Full Results
Road Race Full Results