Jun 28, 2014 at 11:09 AM
I give Vlad all the props. After attacking when the last attack had been caught, on what happened to be a prime lap, Chris Zaverdes (the chubby sprinter kid) came with. So I swung over and refused to work with him and got on his wheel. He eased up, I attacked him and rode away for a lap to grab the prime with a healthy gap. Vlad rode Brian Wolf and Tommy (Rocky Pt. Cycles) across and that made the break of the day. Vlad was putting his TT practice into play and taking long steady pulls. I took shorter ones except when I thought the pace was flagging too much and I'd bring it back up to stretch our lead out some more.
We weren't getting great time gap reporting, but enough to know that we had 50 sec. with 2 laps to go. I was about to start my "I'm not pulling on the last lap" routine when Al B. showed up. Hmmm, damn. New plan needed as Mike's group was coming across.
Vlad dialled it up down the hill, I was slotted 4th wheel with Al 5th. Brian took his pull, Tommy his and Tommy was looking for me to come through on the back stretch and I was like "no way." We bunched, Mike's group caught. I was looking back repeatedly and hoping Mike would start leading it out or at least picking up the tempo. Then Vlad goes and strings it out to close to the base of the uphill. Then he's cooked - good way to get cooked though.
I see Mike near me as we've bunched up again and I'm flicking my right arm as a chicken wing. "Come on Mike, start getting the tempo back up so we don't have a bunchy bunch." I was confident in my sprint, but still didn't want to be bunchy.
Then Mike goes all ape like over his bike and takes off. I grab his wheel and when we get to the top of the rise, I see we've gapped the field and we've got this easily, so Mike has his primal scream as he wobbles off to the left side of the road. I just hit out for home and coasted across for the win. Mike to his credit, kept going and made it home for third. Hell of a show. Today, he'll be paying for that at the CX clinic!
Great team ride. Best I've seen Vlad ride in a long time - so again, bravo Vlad.
