May

I guess some good motivation came in May in that we finally got our new team bikes. Cannondale Caad 10's

The bikes ride really nice. Super stiff, but pretty comfortable on longer rides. I like the way they corner a lot. Anyhow, we also got our 2011 kits in mid April, so the total package is complete.

There were a couple of weeks after the racing in April and the races that would start in May, so I wanted to get a good block of riding in to try to get ready for the Tulsa Tough in June. It seemed like the weather changed overnight from needing arm and knee warmers to super hot!

The first event in May was the last of the OKC Velo TT series races. The conditions were not great with it being cold and windy. I ran my slowest time of the three races, but so did everyone else. I ended up with 2nd for the day and 3rd overall in the series.

The following weekend was the state championship team time trial on Saturday and the state criterium championship on Sunday. Rob, Andy and I formed a team and drove up to Hominy Saturday morning to give it a go. We felt like we had a pretty good plan, but once we were actually underway, it got a little sloppy. We ended up getting 3rd overall. The bummer was that we were only 2 seconds behind 2nd place, but we beat 4th place by 10 seconds. We're already planning on doing it again next year. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first year for a state team time trial. It was much more fun than doing the individual 40K state time trial for sure!

Sunday was the state criterium in Sand Springs. Same course as last year...pretty fun, but not as hot.
Jeremy decided to come out of retirement, and race with Rob, Shawn, and me. As we were warming up, we came up with a plan of marking 3 riders we thought would do well, and pretty much just shadow them. It was comical the first 2 laps of the race. The plan got thrown out the window pretty quickly as the Tulsa Tough riders were attacking from the start.

The race was 75 minutes long. I made it for 1 hour before I got dropped from the main field. I guess it's better than last years result, but still pretty disappointing.

The following Wednesday was the after work crit at the Edmond fire training center. The course layout this time was really fun. It was windy and the big hill was left out, so with the challenging corners, it was more of a true crit course. There were probably 25-30 high quality riders in the cat 123 A-race. Brandon and I were the only guys on the team who were able to make it out, and we were looking for a little redemption from the first race. The race started fast and pretty much stayed that way the whole time. In the photo above, this is the initial break that got things started. I had to kill it to bridge up to Brandon and the other 2 riders. Eventually the break grew to 7 riders.

There were a couple of awesome photographers taking pictures. I really like this one. In the end, the race went well for us. I got 2nd and Brandon got 4th. If I would have jumped a few seconds sooner, I'm pretty sure I would have won, but 2nd was good.
The last weekend in May was the Texas state criteriums. There was actually 4 days of racing due to Memorial day, but Rob and I decided to go down and do the Sunday and Monday races.

The weather was hot and the courses were the same both days. Sunday we went clockwise and Monday we went counterclockwise. Sunday was the skill based Texas state championships. There were about 80 or 90 cat 2's in our race. The course basically circled a small college facility. It was actually shaped kind of like a big circle with a little corner cut out, in other words, not very technical. The cat 2 race was 75 minutes long. With the weather being hot and all, it seemed like once we hit the 1 hour point and the lap counter showed 5 laps to go, guys just started popping left and right. Long story short, Rob and I got caught behind 1 too many gaps and found ourselves chasing the last 3 laps what was left of the main field. I think I ended up 27th.

Monday was the age based race. I think there were around 65 riders or so. It was basically 40-49 year olds with Texas state jerseys awarded to 40-44 and 45-49 age groups. There was quite a variety of rider abilities in the race. Most of the race went really well for me. I got in a good break early on. It started out as 4 riders and grew to about 12 riders, then shrunk back down to 6 riders. The break, however, was never really organized. There were a lot of rival teams represented with more than 1 rider from each team, so there was non stop surging and attacking.

We had lapped a lot of the field and were 45 seconds or so ahead of the main field. At 2 laps to go, I put in too hard of an effort on one of my pulls, somebody attacked and I didn't have the legs to jump back on. I thought I could still finish in a money spot as the race payed 7 deep, but the main field caught me with about 300 meters to go. I think I got 20 something place and 11th in my age category. Not what I was hoping for race wise, but some good speed building work to prepare for the Tulsa Tough.