Tour of Walla Walla

There were some great races leading up to the Tour of Walla Walla April 21st & 22nd. First was a race I haven't done in a couple years, the Northshore TT and Road Race up near Bellingham. Both of these races were great to do prior to Walla Walla. The TT course was nice and this was the first real effort on the TT bike this year. I spent some time on it via the trainer but nothing at full gas. I changed my position a little with a longer stem and messed with my seat as well. I think it worked out well. I took 16th in the TT 1:44 behind the winner. Not to shabby for me as I am not very good at TT's. Then the next day was the Northshore Road Race. This course I remember well as it was one of my top 5 worse experiences on the bike. The course is good but it has 500ft of climbing per lap and we would be doing 4 laps of the 9 mile course. I put on a different set of wheels and didn't tune the bike up prior to the race. I was able to make the ghost shifting work up until the last lap when I fell off the back of the pack and came home in 32nd place. It was pretty frustrating but I think if I didn't have to deal with the inconsistent shifting I might have been able to hang on until the finish. Still all in all a good weekend warm up prior to Walla Walla. Tour of Walla Walla I love this race. I have been coming here since my first year racing. The organizers changed it up this year with the Criterium being first and then the TT in the afternoon. Travis, Gabe and I would be the only teammates racing. We arrived on Friday and took our TT bikes out and road the TT course. The Criterium was my main focus as I have done well on this course and finished 5th last year. It has 8 corners, rough pavement and it’s flat. All things I don't mind, especially the cornering. I was going to try and go for a time bonus on one of the prime laps but the man to beat from Starbucks got himself in a break and took all the bonus time. We caught him about 2 laps from the finish. I moved up to the front on the last lap and held the position well until half way around when I got a little too relaxed and fell back a few places. This is where I lost the chance to fight for the win. Coming through one of the final few corners someone went wide and pushed several guys up to the curb. With my relaxed position this put me behind this group and I close the gap down to the front guys. I arrived 3 corners before the finish and moved up to about 15th wheel or so. Then coming through the final corner I took the inside and got behind a guy that decided to sit up. I cursed myself again and moved out and started my sprint real early. I was able to bring it home in 9th place and Gabe followed suit and came in 10th. Good showing for the team and Gabe is our GC guy so that was good to see. I was really upset with myself the rest of the day. I went back to the hotel and sat in my room and watched TV until it was time to get ready for the TT.

Time trial: My goal was to use the anger I had from the crit to channel it into the Time trial since I kind of suck at TT's. I got a good long warm up in with Travis and was able to put together my best TT ever. I finished 21st 1:46 behind the winner. Gabe finished 10th 1:09 behind the winner. Great result.

The road race has never been good to me, including this year. -My first year racing as a Cat 5 I somehow ended up in the Cat 3 field. Duh. I lasted until the end of the first lap then realized my mistake and called it a day. -The next year I made it into the correct race. I got a thumb tack stuck in my front wheel on the neutral roll out and flatted about 2 miles after the start of the race. I was able to chase back on but I caught up to everyone just as we got to the big hill and fell off the back again. -This year I was in much better shape overall and my goal was to maintain my top 20 position on the General Classification and help Gabe as much as possible. The pace was pretty slow to start out as Starbucks was trying to control the race for their GC guy Tony. We were hitting close to 50 mph on the first major decent and at the bottom is a tight left hand corner. About 30 yards from the corner my tire exploded. It sounded like someone shot a gun in the pack. It was so loud it hurt my ears. My tire blew off of the rim so getting slowed down all the way was a little painful. I got it stopped and the wheel change was pretty bad. After getting the wheel on and putting my chain back on I couldn't see the rest of the field. My race was over 15 miles into it. So I road solo for about 45 miles but did catch up to Travis D and we cruised in together. I finished 49th.