Cross Crusade PIR: Mixed Emotions

(photo credit: Kenji Sugahara)

Two days later and I still don't know how I feel about this race.  My top-10 last week earned me another callup this week but I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me.  This course was a pure rider's course with long straight sections where you could just open the throttle and gap people off.  The goal again: stick with a group and earn some points.  

The opening laps were fast.  Really fast.  I spent the first two laps yo-yoing off the back of Group 1 before blowing just a little heading into lap 3.  A huge group came by me of lap three and I just didn't have the legs to hang.  By my count I was riding somewhere around 25th.  Oh well, not my course and I went a little too

 deep in the beginning.  My mistake.

With three to go my legs suddenly opened up and I was full-throttle on the open sections and taking really good lines on the few corners on the course.  Still, probably not good enough for even a top-20 and definitely not in the points.  At this point I was trading blows with Christian Buesch and figured this would be a good time to work on tactics at the very least.  On the last lap I'd managed to find a line past a couple masters and women that closed before Christian was able to squeeze through.  A handful of seconds; that was my gap, that's all I needed.  Now just to not do something stupid.

(photo credit: Kenji Sugahara)

This time it wasn't me.  It was luck.  With half a lap to go my rear tire started to slide out.  Not again!  This happened in the exact same place two years ago!  Screw it, the pit is close, I'm going to make it.

The tire slowly lost air but it still had just enough body (6psi?) that I could still ride at about 80% speed.  Two years ago I would have died trying to do this.  Christian passed me just as I got to the pit and I knew I could get him back but I'd have to work for it.  I rolled right up to where I left my second bike and... where was it?  What was supposed to be a 5-second change became a 30+ second one as I scoured the pit looking for where my bike had been moved to.  Finally I found it and took off but it was too late.  I destroyed that last half lap to try and regain any places I'd lost but it's pretty tough to make up 30 seconds in 4 minutes.

I crossed the line 19th.  Christian finished 14th.  

How do you react to this?  I have a hard time complaining about that result especially since I didn't think I was even riding in that place before the flat but then look at what I could have had.

Like I said, mixed emotions.  Yeah, I'm super bummed I missed out on another shot at grabbing some points but I didn't have that bad of a race either.  Oh well, a little bit of extra fuel for next time.