Onto the illustrious distance enhanced Michigan State Road Championships report. I went into the day hungry for a result and stoked that the promoters had increased the distance to 102 miles this year, which was in my favor.
Unlike the race trend of an early successful break that has been established so far this season, and despite my early-on active aggression, no breaks were sticking until around mile 70.
I had three goals for the day:
1. Maintain the team’s 2nd place overall standing and/or increase it.
2. Defend Danny Klein’s lead in the individual point series.
3. Crack a good result myself.
When the first winning break went we had Danny up the road as well as Corey Dubrish. It was great situation, and I was pleased with the probability of its success. However, Danny was unable to maintain his position in the break and fell back to the field. In the meantime, several other teams managed to bridge to the break but we were unable to send anyone else up. Feeling that I had a lot left in the tank, I attacked at the beginning of the 5th lap. Looking back, I was pleased to see I put significant distance on the field and my teammate Cruise was bridging to me to join the bridge effort to the front break. After about 15 minutes of turning ourselves inside out, we managed to make contact with the front break. However, we quickly learned that 4 riders had broken away from the front group and we were not represented up the road. With about twenty miles left in the race, I knew I had my work cut out for me if a podium spot was going to be a reality, so I started to drive the break with the hopes that some other riders would join forces to catch the 4 leading riders.
Sometimes, things just don’t work out the way you hope them to. As we turned the corner to roll past the start/finish line and begin our last lap, the clouds instantly turned black and we became engulfed in a torrential downpour causing us to virtually quit racing a roll onward in what is best described as “survival mode”. As we neared the line, sirens rang and we realized the race was being called early due to severe inclement weather. Our group sprinted for the line half-heartedly as if to roll after a city limit sign in the last 50 feet of a friendly group ride. Fearing a crash, I simply rolled through the line without contest.
Overall, I was disappointed we were unable to finish the full race distance and duke it...out but that’s racing. We still managed to fulfill two of the three goals.
Top WSC Finishers:
7th Corey Dubrish
10th Cruise Bogedin
13th Tim Finkel
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