Ephrata- From Suck Fest to Bad Luck Fest

I decided to head up to lovely Amish Country and skip Bunny Hop to race the Ephrata Omnium. I switched from the 3/4 to the 4 at the last minute and was hoping to finally 'do things right'.

I stayed with some teammates in lovely Delaware on Friday night. I left at 6 on Saturday and spent the entire drive trying to 'hold it', but finally dominated an Arby's in Lancaster and felt like I could possibly ride a bike comfortably. I hadn't eaten a processed grain in 5 weeks so the pasta the night before kinda upset my guts since they weren't really sure what to do with it other than force it out ASAP.

Warm up was eh, race course was easy. The 'climb' was a 53-21 affair and no real attacks went on it. Lap 2 was pretty fast for a minute, but it seemed as if everyone just sat up and decided to soft pedal the next two laps. There were quite a few stupidly sketchy riders and the traditional series of failed attacks and reshuffles that caused some surges in some fairly illogical places. I thought that I had the finish figured out pretty well and my plan was to be in the top 10 and then hope for a sprint. Unfortunately, I did not actually have it figured out, jumped on an incredily ill fated lead out that sat up about 300 from the finish, and watched much of the field pass by me.

Alex Weiler of RTR won the bunch sprint in the pro 1/2 for 5th and John Cutler went on a two lap solo in the 3/4 and came home in 8th. Not too shabby for someone that isn't a sprinter. RTR went into day 2 ranked 2nd on the team standings behind Bissell and ahead of quite a few good teams. Not sure how, but it was pretty cool. My teammate Clint made the same mistake in the 3/4 sprint as I did and suffered the same fate.

My allergies were raging and my sinuses felt as if they were packed with molten lava. I tried some Zyrtec, which made me drowsy so I had to counter that with even more coffee than normal. My eyes were watering so bad in the road race that I had to close the left one for part of a lap to avoid scratching it with my hand.

With the Omnium GC out of reach I didn't care about the TT. Warmed up and rode at 85%-90% of my best 20 minute power. I also forgot to change my 11-23 the day before and was stuck grinding away at 40 RPM on the last two miles of climb, which hurt my average speed a ton. The first part of the course was easy and I managed 20th, which is good considering that most people actually gave a shit and drilled it. I know that I could have finished about 30 seconds faster just having a bigger gear and riding closer to my 20m best, but I cared more about the PM crit.

The crit course was fun, except for turn 2 and the ridiculous amount of line choppage that some of the sketchier older riders were engaging in. I held a decent position and finaly had the cornering figured out, but the last lap had a different plan. I got into 15th or so hoping to actually make a move before the last turn and take it really sharp in order to carry speed into the downhill finish. Well, the rider in front of me got chopped by a pedal striker on turn 2 and hit the barriers hard, which created a gap and once again ended my chance at doing anything redeeming in cat 4 racing.

I regret not doing the 3/4 simply because of the smoother, less accordionesque pace that seems to have characterized many 4 races thus far. My average power from the crit was a good 20 watts higher than that of a stronger-than-I 3/4 rider despite the fact that he finished better and rode more at the front and did more work. So, I have definitive proof that the races actually do require more power and it wasn't just my sucky riding.

I hit up Sonic with Rich, the creator of the interesting cycling card game First to the Line, and dominated a large tots, large popcorn chicken, peanut butter malt shake, and some onion rings. First fast food in over a year and it felt amazing.

Greenbelt Wednesday and then hopefully redeeming my season at Jeff Cup.