Elkhorn pictures

So HERE is the link to all the pictures from Elkhorn.  None of them are awesome shots but at least it's something!  Upon reflection from Elkhorn, I'm glad that I did it but it's sure taken a toll on my body.  I'm toying with the idea of doing another stage race in a few weeks but I know Cat 3 is a whole different ball game.  We'll see, enjoy the pictures.  Thank you again to my driver for both driving and taking the pictures.  I really do appreciate it!

Couldn't have done this one without the team

I have a pretty awesome team.  I've been with them a whole, what, 4 weeks now?  I feel like I've ridden with these guys for year.  Not one of them has any issue with laying it all down on the line to see one of their teammates succeed.  These guys are amazing!

Elkhorn Stage Race-Stage 4-Dooley Mt Road Race

OOOWWWWWWWW!!!  Ok, so on Friday I said that was the hardest thing I had ever done on a bike, and it was true.  The Dooley Mt road race made Friday's b**** of a road race into the cutest golden retriever puppy you've ever seen.  Think of it like this:

At the conclusion of Friday's stage this is how I would have represented it:


After finishing Sunday's stage, this is what Friday's stage looks like:

After that brief reflection, here's the report:

Elkhorn Stage Race-Stage 3-Crit

Ok, so maybe crits aren't the terrible monster that I originally thought they were.  Granted, they're still fast and the 4/5 mix isn't my favorite but everyone seemed to have the understanding that the primes were the only things up for grabs, no time bonuses and no points so I think that made it a little more relaxed.

Elkhorn Stage Race--Stage 2--Individual Time Trial

Alright, for having never done something like that I don't think I did too poorly.  A HUGE thanks to Drew Willis for letting me borrow his clip-on aero bars.  They made a world of difference, THANK YOU DREW!  Sorry, no pictures yet but I'll post some of them later when I pull them off teammates cameras.  

Elkhorn-Stage 1-Oregon Trail Road Race

Holy f*** that was hard! (no, that’s not what she said…).  71 miles, over 6k of climbing and an average of 22 mph.  I can safely say I’ve never done anything like that before.  The first 30 miles or so were dead flat with a tailwind.  Everyone who knew anything about this race knew to sit in the pack and not do anything stupid.  It was really hard for me because after 5 miles I was bored and when I get bored I do stupid things.  One guy took off after about 8 miles and a teammate and one other guy took off after him.  The third guy pulled over got a pee break and my teammate was stuck out in no-man’s-land just hanging out.  He TT’d off the front for over half an hour and was actually pretty chipper once we caught him.  On the other hand “green jersey” was way the hell off the front, out of sight on even the longest straight-aways—s***.  The official car came back to tell us he’d supposedly built up an 8 minute lead on us, again, s***.  Then the climbing started.  First with a little roller, then one big sucker followed by some of the nastiest rollers I’ve ever seen.  The selection process was made over the “big sucker” and we had about a dozen guys half-assedly working together.  We caught “green jersey” and he sucked on.  Then the rollers started.  Again, the break is not working well together but there’s no chance of going solo because of the wind.  Then the huge rollers started.  People started blowing up and falling off the back.  My legs hurt like hell but there wasn’t any way I was going to drop back to the fractured peleton so I held on.  Unfortunately, I’d moved to the back of our poorly functioning paceline just as two guys took off on the front.  I knew I had the legs to ride with them but no one responded and they just rode away.  From that point on it was a matter of minimizing time loss.  I was sitting 4^th with some little d-bag kid from Bend hanging on my wheel.  I got sick of that so I dropped him and tried to bridge up to the guy in third riding solo.  I never made it.  Ripped down the last hill and TT’d the last 3k to the finish at 30mph.  Still waiting on official results but I’m either 4^th or 5^th and hopefully no more than a minute off the leaders. 

The individual time trial tomorrow is going to be interesting.  I have no TT bike, no aero helmet and no aero bars at this point.  I know I’m strong but we’ll see how much time I lose on those other guys who have that stuff. 

Overall today was a good day but I’m concerned about how my legs are going to respond to tomorrow.  Oh well, we’ll see how it goes and hopefully I can stay top 5.

Updated:  results- 4th in the GC 1:26 off the lead

update

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I'm terrible about updating this thing.  I could make excuses that I didn't have my computer for a while or that I've been busy riding but it would be just that... excuses.

Anyway, quick rundown of the past month and a half: