Finally I have something positive to say about my racing this year. I went back to my old style of hard ass racing, from the front getting involved, animating and it payed off.
I was all about breaking the mold this weekend. I was a rebel. I even went to Starbucks and ordered a "small" coffee before leaving. I know they call it Venti, or Grandi or something...but really give me a break, I'm not in to grandi, non fat, so soy maci whatevers...coffee....just give me a frigin cup of strong coffee. Anyways, we went back down to NY, just about 30km away from NY city on the Palisades Hwy to battle at Bear Mountain Road Race. The race for me was 160 km of hilly roads, it was a 20 km circuit. It was an 80 km descent followed by a 180 degree turn on to a sharp steep hill, a little false flat a couple traffic circle turns, crit style and a step climb for a good 6-8minutes and some good fast flat sections by some local beaches(For Wendy...I said beaches not bitches). So after almost dying the first time through the 180 degree turn, I was pretty much maxed on adrenaline, so /i used it to stay in the front. The field was big, probably about 110 guys, pretty descent quality, but this type of race which has 80 minutes of climbing...there's gonna be a lot of shrapnel, so you can't let these people get in front of you. I stayed near the front follow wheels cover attacks, never really initiating too much. I knew the Volkswagon guys were firing 100%, so they had to be watched, also they won the race last year.
Everything was under control, going to plan, staying out of trouble when, boom! I smoked a pot hole in which you could probably fit a couple Leprechauns in..shit. This is not good, it's pinned at 50 km an hour trying to pull back some guys off the front. Raise my right hand fade to to the back...Kevin Hazzard, my Jet Fuel team mate, who was slightly fatigued from his trip to the South and racing yesterday says "Derrick you want my wheel?" Hell yah! We drop back , grab his wheel, slam it in and never look back, head down and next thing I know after a good hard chase and a little help from some guy on a moto...well I'm not sure if he knew he was kinda of helping, Bryon Bowers another teammate, drops back and helps me close the final chunk. Nice. As Borat would say "Very Nice".
So I'm totally frigin on the rivit, feeling like a sac of poo, from already doing 85 km and covering stuff. Well after taking this help I had to do everything I could to achieve a good result. So I go straight to the front. VW is firing off ...so is EVA. Wait...I hear everyone breathing really hard, I'm breathing hard feeling not great...then I remember Glen's mantra"hit em when you feel like shit, chances are they are worse"...so I hit em, JS form EVA comes and goes again off my attack, we get 3 going, we start passing other fields which is great cause it leads to chaos behind, a few other guys join, and then some more. We roll around for a while finally the group swells to 15 or so and there it is. About 10 km from the finish I fade back at the wrong time and 5 guys break off the front and get a gap, they keep it. Everyone in my group is shattered...hahah really messed up. In the final sprint , a guys unclips in front of me and I loose some inertia and come 12th overall. End result not bad could have been better, but hey lately I haven't been 100% and I'm still not, but it's nice to see the form coming back and the head is now attached to my body and they are talking again. A couple little things I needed to do differently but you have to be in the break before you win from the break, so no worries.
It was really great to have teammates pulling for me today. The race was much more satisfiing and I gave a 110% knowing that the Jet Fuel boys had sacrificed their race for the better of mine. That's what team work is about, if someone's on that day, the others do everything possible to make sure he gets and stays at the front of the race.
Tasha will have a little race report to follow.
DSJ
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