#velopromo

Coming from Arizona, where there's a short season comprised of mostly crits, seeing Velo Promo's schedule is pretty amazing.  Thanks for putting on so many good races across Northern California!

Early Bird Training Crits, Fremont Jan 5,12,19,26,Feb2 

Early Bird Road Race, Patterson 18-Jan

Cantua Creek RR, Coalinga 15-Feb

Pine Flat RR Piedra 16-Feb

Dinuba Crit, Dinuba 17-Feb

Snelling RR, Snelling 22-Feb

Original Merced Crit, Merced 23-Feb

Madera Stage Race, Madera 7-9 March

Wards Ferry RR, Sonora 15-Mar

Hanford Criterium, Hanford 23-Mar

Santa Cruz Classic Crit, Santa Cruz 30-Mar

Copperopolis RR, Milton 19-Apr

Regalado RR, Oakdale 11-May

Mariposa Women's SR, Mariposa 16-18 May

Leesville Gap RR, Williams 5-Jul

Watsonville Crit, Watsonville 12-Jul

Warnerville TT, Knights Ferry 2-Aug

Patterson Pass RR, Tracy 3-Aug

Dunnigan Hills RR, Yolo 9-Aug

Susiun Harbor Crit, Suisun City 10-Aug

San Ardo RR, San Ardo 16-Aug

University RR, Santa Cruz 17-Aug

Winters RR, Winters 23-Aug

Vacaville Gran Prix, Vacaville 24-Aug

Challenge Challenge RR, Challenge 30-Aug

Esparto TT, Esparto 31-Aug

Giro di San Francisco, San Francisco 1-Sep

Oakland Grand Prix, Oakland 21-Sep

with the go-cart packed and de la coffee in hand, i headed out around 4:30am, en-route to Sonora, California for the 14th Annual Wards Ferry Road Race. The long drive gave me more than enough time to rehearse the basic plan i'd established for the race: stay up front. 

My genius** plan seemed all but dashed when i rolled up to the start line and learned that the P/1/2, Masters 1/2/3 and E3 groups would be lumped into one field. We were set to complete 5 laps of the hilly 12 mile course.

Fast forward and our 43 man group is dropping into a fast, bumpy descent. Yours truly — somewhere in the back half. After managing to gain a few spots, we hit the first hill and I settle into a comfortable rhythm, someone jumps and we all rush to close the gap. This is the scenario. Rinsing / repeating, climbing / descending. I'm working hard to keep myself relaxed and alert. There's a hill at the beginning of each lap that they're calling the "feed zone" (i'll call it Feed Hill). Feed Hill seems to bait everyone into hitting the gas. At one point, possibly lap 3, I'm doing my best to hold on to the lead group, and my breakfast, while we frantically rush up Feed Hill. Coming over the top, I glance back and see that our group has shrunk to about half of what it was. This smaller group keeps an efficient pace through the descents and along the rough back stretch. We approach the right turn onto Feed Hill for the last time and someone turns it up. I work myself into the red to get around a few riders and latch onto the back of the 3 man move. Coming over top we've got a solid gap and I'm doing all I can to recover while not losing contact. I couldn't muster up a pull and sat on for a bit while a maniacal bike racer in an iron data/thirsty bear kit, who shall remain nameless, pulls the 3 of us around. My legs decide they want to respond again, and I do my best to help keep our distance from the group. The four of us share the work the best we can and there's still no sign of a chase. At about 2k to go, the aforementioned maniacal bike racer tucks into TT mode and basically rolls off the front of our now splintering group.  I cross the line 3rd overall - taking the top spot among the E3 field.

Tough race, and there's a picture of my pain-induced donkey face floating around the interwebz to prove it.