Cherry Roubaix can be best summed up as the hardest race weekend in Michigan. On schedule for the weekend was a criterium in downtown Traverse City on Saturday, and a road race of epic proportions near Sleeping Bear Dunes Sunday. The criterium for this year was still mostly in the same location, however the route had been changed. I for one wasn't really a fan of the new route. It was a fairly standard 6 corner circuit with a few sections of brick road. I've raced on enough brick this year and frankly I am just tired of it.
My race was scheduled to start at 430, luckily the weather wasn't to hot. The race was just 40 minutes plus two laps, so it would be quick and painful. For me the race started as a disaster. From the start nothing went right. I didn't have good positioning off the line and to make matters worse the pace was set high from the gun. I was doing a fairly decent job at carving my way through the field, but then everything went to crap for me. About ten minutes into the race I had another racer chop my front wheel in a corner. What this means is essentially he didn't hold his line in the corner and came across my front wheel, making contact. This usually doesn't bode well for the guy in my position. Luckily I was able to make a few evasive maneuvers and stay upright. He had hit my wheel hard and defiantly felt the contact. Going down the straight he looked back at me and I gave him the "death look". I was mad. Not only had I almost wrecked, I lost all my momentum recovering and found myself at the back of the field again. Oh well, so I had 30 minutes to work back up. However I was doomed, every effort I made to move up was countered by either a crash or...yet another wheel chopper. I was using up a ton of energy to work around these incidents. Some races positioning is golden, and this was one. I don't mean to be offensive, but there was a good group of riders in the field that need to learn how to ride. It is essential to learn how to hold your line in a corner. I had one rider literally cut me off in 3 straight corners, and he knew it. I would sprint to pass him, and he would sprint to not let me pass. Then he would cut me off in the corner and I had to work just that much harder to get up next to him on the next straight. To make matters worse there was a crash with 8 minutes to go right in front of me. I had to back way off and lost contact with the field. I busted my butt though and got back into the race. However with three laps to go 3 riders in front of me decided to just give up and drop from the pack and race. Grr...they really slowed up in the corner and blocked me a little. This created another big gap to the field. The work I had done throughout the race dodging mishap had taken a major toll. I couldn't bridge back, so I rode the last 3 laps in anger. Out of 45 riders I took 30th. I was a much stronger rider then the results show. Some days just don't go to plan.
Sunday I was hoping for much better luck, road races suit me better. The course though was a brutal circuit with about 800 feet of climbing per lap. My race was 5 circuits for a total of 68.5 miles. 800 feet of climbing doesn't sound to bad, by the 2 main climbs average around 8% gradient making for a tough climb. Another good thing about this race was it started at 840 AM, which was good since the forecast was for upper 80's in the afternoon. 
So my race set off in the cool morning air, which was actually a very welcoming thing. Right off the bat a Ricardo sprinted off the front. This brought out a good laugh since he might have been the biggest guy in the field and not a big threat for the day. So the race started very relaxed and everybody was talking. However by the time we got to the first climb is was back to business. To sum things up the first 3 laps were boring, with a few attacks here and there to keep everyone awake. The only casualty was one of my teammates who crashed at the end of the first lap. Unfortunately he broke his front wheel and DNF'ed, but what was more unfortunate was that he was boring my front wheel.
The fourth lap the race was finally starting to shape up, several serious attacks took place during this lap. I found myself at the front of the pack twice turning up the pace to bring these guys back. I did bring them back in though and lived to fight into the final lap. However though at the start of the final lap I realized my day was done. Which was ok because I did what I needed to do to contribute to the race. Going up the first small incline of the last lap I got a funny feeling climbing. My legs were dead. my muscles weren't cramping, they just had no power. I was hoping I could just keep with the pack over the last two big climbs, but on the next and biggest climb on the course I got dropped. It took everything I had to not walk up the hill, I wasn't breathing hard either. I just had no power. So I spent the last 4 miles by myself cruising to the line solo. Its a real kicker to bonk like that so close to the end. I guess the only thing I could have done was eat on the bike better during the race, maybe that could have helped. Anyways I rolled across the line in 25th out of 41. I was just happy to finish this grueling race. Last year I had to DNF after I strained my calf muscle badly. Next up, the final race of the road racing season for me on Labor Day.
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