2 TT's and 2 crits

The last half of April was packed with racing, all of it good in one way or another. Race 3 of 4 in the Wednesday series was another time trial. The course was shortened a little to deal with the traffic, so instead of 8.2 miles, the course was 7.9 miles. Big John let me borrow his rear disc wheel and 808 front wheel. The set up was fast as I ran a 17:07, which was good enough for second place. Once again, the team took the top 3 spots. This would lock us into the top 3 spots overall in the race series.



The second of the 3 OKC Velo time trial series was on the 24th. I had originally planned on using Big John's wheels again, but his start time was only 10 minutes or so ahead of me giving us not enough time to swap. Rob was the first rider to start, so he got back a few minutes before I started and let me borrow his rear wheel with covers. I ran my best time ever with a 17:40, which is also the time Rob ran, so we tied for 2nd, 3 seconds behind 1st.



The next day, Brian Parks and I went down to Dallas for day 2 of the Matrix criterium. The course was tight and technical, and the racing was VERY fast. It would have been smart to go down to Dallas right after the TT on Saturday and race then as well. It took about 20 minutes on Sunday to get comfortable racing a criterium at that speed and intensity. I made it for 60 of the 90 minutes before I got dropped and pulled shortly thereafter. The courses were the same both days so I think if I had raced Sat. it would have definitely helped to be more prepared for Sunday. Anyhow, I got some good experience for the bigger crits coming up in this area.

Thursday the 28th was the last race of the April CORS. Criterium at the Edmond fire training facility. Jeremy, Rob and I had the top 3 points locked up so, if we could somehow get Brian Parks a win for the day, it would give him 4th overall in the series. We came up with a plan and for the most part executed it perfectly. Jeremy and me hit it pretty hard early to "tenderize" the field while Rob and Brian sat in and took it easy. Right about the point where the 3rd attack started to fizzle, Rob and Brian punched it and were gone the rest of the race. Jeremy and I policed the main field blocking, covering anything that tried to bridge, and just being disruptive to any organized chasing efforts. We let a couple of guys dangle in no mans land and I got the field sprint for the final points spot while Brian and Rob took 1st and 2nd for the day.
Our plan worked and we ended up with the top 4 spots in the April series. I think tactically, this was out best effort of the season so far!

This weekend is the big Joe Martin stage race. All 5 of us are going and looking forward to some epic racing in Arkansas.