Redbud and April race series #2

Once upon a time, the Redbud Classic was quite the deal. Well, at least to me. A few years ago when I was first getting into road racing, it was a big deal. You would get a timing chip and find out how you stacked up against the real racers and local badasses. In 2006 it was actually a USCF sanctioned road race. Since then, the Redbud has been shortened with toughest section removed and basically turned into an untimed T-shirt ride. You will still have a high percentage of guys who are going to go out and punch it, but it's still not quite the same.

Some of my teammates and I did the ride last year, which ended up getting pretty silly. We had so much fun last year that we decided to do it again this year.
Brady took off a few miles into the ride once again. Fast forward to midway through, A Bike Alley guy took off and Jeremy went with him. So basically by the time we're heading back on Hefner Rd., we have Brady about 3 minutes up the road and Jeremy and the BAR guy about 1 minute up.

This hammerhead guy decides he is gonna pull the whole group up and catch the leaders solo. He actually did a pretty good job as the gap was about 20-30 seconds as we got to the Oakdale school. The hammerhead guy started to peter out, so this guy on a Cervelo wearing a Schlegel Bikes jersey (the shop I work at) takes off and I went with him. We broke free from what was left of the main field and I could see a shadow of a third rider that had come with us. I thought it was the other BAR rider, but it turned out to be my teammate Erin.

We bridged up to Jeremy and then finally Brady blew up on MLK a couple of miles before 63rd st. and we caught him. At this point, we have 4 Foss1l riders 1 BAR guy and the Cervelo guy. Around 63rd and Walker I attacked and the Cervelo guy came with me. He asked me where we finished and I told him it was just past this next hill. He said he wasn't going to sprint me and that he thought it was funny that neither of us had numbers on. We just rode in together and I felt like a schmuck for not signing up and just ghost riding the event.

Jeremy and Erin finished next. I later found out the Cervelo guy was Greg Oravetz. He was a top notch pro at one time who raced on the Coors light racing team in the late 80's-early 90's. He was also the USPRO national road race champion in 1989. Pretty cool.

On to the Lake Draper circuit race. Once again, huge fields in the 2nd race of the April series. Plenty of cat 1's and 2's in the race, plus the weather conditions were perfect. About 2 miles into the race, Jeremy got away. From that point on, the rest of the race was a series of attacks. It seemed like the Metro VW team of 2 riders was the strongest, but they weren't willing to go hard for more than a minute at a time.

Guys were getting frustrated because they couldn't break away from the main field. Some guys were grumbling and complaining that the Foss1l guys weren't working, but that's what you do when you have a guy off the front.

We had numbers and I think we did a pretty good job of controlling the race. A pretty stacked race at that. Jeremy ended up soloing in by 15-20 seconds or so. I got caught up in traffic in the field sprint and almost went down, but it worked out well keeping me from starting my sprint too early. I ended up getting 2nd in the field sprint giving me another 3rd overall.

So this weekend is the OKC Velo TT series 1st of 3 races. Steve is going to be out of town and he said I could borrow his Cervelo P3.....SWEET!!!! The April series next Wednesday is also a TT. I think I'm sitting second points wise, so hopefully I can pull out a good time and stay in the top 3 or 4.