rroof wrote:
grumpier.mike wrote:
I saw SlowTwitch poster Kevin Metcalf missed the win by 1second in the 55-59 category. That's a hard margin to lose by because you can always think of something you didn't do as well as you should/could have.
Wishing him the best of luck next year!
Yeah, Kevin had a rough road race. Older team mate of mine took 26th in RR with Kevin missing the break and back 60 something (just under 100 starters I think). I think he skipped the crit (which was likely a good idea with LOTS of crashes on the 35 mpg straight away into "the turn" and then dominated the TT. 1 sec though. Damn.
I wont go so far as to say the road race course was "bad", but there was nothing to keep it from being a negative chase fest. I tried to get away on a number of occasions but was pretty heavily marked and none of the hills were long enough or hard enough to force a selection. Then other guys who were worth taking note of (Dan Shore in particular) were allowed to roll away. Then it became a game of chase anybody who goes after them and then sit up and let the break roll further away... It's an old story.
I tried a last few times on the last lap, but had no luck and then just said fuck it and towed the field from about 4km to go until they started coming around with 1km to go at at that point I just got out of the way. We got pretty close and I was hoping that a friend of mine might be able to pull something off in the sprint. If others would have done something instead of sitting in to sprint for 20th place we could have caught the leaders. Maybe not Dan the winner, but... I had no interest or aptitude to be part of that group sprint.
I like doing criteriums, but opted out of this one due to it being so close to the TT (6:30pm the night before) and the risk of this course. I went out and watched my team win the 45+ race and came up with the idea that Wednesday was the National Criterium Championship (Long Course) and Thursday was the National Criterium Championship (Short Course). Sometimes I crack myself up.
As for the TT. Congrats to Brian. And yes it sucked a great deal to lose by 1.06 seconds! In retrospect I think I went out too hard and was certainly paying for it on the way back. Afterwards I packed up, drove to Charlotte and flew home. My wife picked me up and we drove down to some friends house where I unpacked and built up my TT bike, then on 5 hours sleep went out to do a local low key TT with my wife at 7:30am. I had a good ride and my legs felt pretty good, which to me kind of backs up the idea that I melted a bit the day before and that it wasn't so much my legs. But the guy who win's is the guy who puts it all together on race day and that is what Brian did.
BTW, I think only one guy (my team mate Dan Bryant) did not get chicked by Carmen Small. It may have been cooler when she rode and that may have helped, but she did a hell of a ride!
One last try in August for the hill climb for me...
Kevin
http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com My Strava