A New Curse

So last week I was all about "Breaking the Curse". Now though, it seems as if I had made the wish with some cursed monkey hand and now the wish has come true and turned into another sort of curse. I'll list off some results and we'll see if you can see the trend:

Hell's Kitchen Road Race: Greg - 2nd
Snake Alley Criterium: Paul Martin -2nd
Quad Cities Road Race: Greg - 2nd
Koehlinger/Kelley 40K TT: Greg -2nd
Indiana State Road Race: Ryan - 2nd (but first Hoosier)
Winfield Twilight: Me -2nd
ABR Nationals: Me - 2nd
Tour of Mt. Pleasant Criterium: Me -2nd
Tour of Mt. Pleasant Road Race: Greg -2nd
Tour of Mt. Pleasant Omnium: Me-2nd

So it's pretty obvious we're on the right track, but can't quite seal the deal at these races. However the summer is long and there are many more races to come so I'm not too worried.

Anyway on to the races, Le Tour de Mount Pleasant. This race, in it's first year, was incredibly well organized. Usually first year races are hit or miss, and this race was definitely a hit. The criterium, taking place in the downtown area of Mt. Pleasant, was a very fast six corner criterium with wide open turns and two very long straights. This race also saw another first, it was the first time this year when the entire Panther team was together at a race. In all we had eight riders for the criterium and nine for the road race. The fields were no slow pokes either, with Bissell, Jet Fuel Coffee (Canadian Pro team), and Kenda lining up at the start. As expected the crit was very fast, but with a large field and a few large teams nothing really got away. I tried getting in some moves but decided to sit in as the race started getting close to finishing. Greg went off the front with about 10 to go and stayed out there by himself until the second to last time down the finishing straight, picking up some cash money primes, and more importantly a Rum Poster prime. With one to go I managed to catch Derek's wheel and he killed it bringing me to the front near Paul. In the last lap it was the dueling lead-outs trains of Kenda riding for Ben Renkema and Panther. I thought I had great position flying down the second to last straight sitting right on Ben's wheel. The last two corners were at odd angles and on some rough pavement. Going into the second to last turn I just hesitated/wimped out the slightest amount, feathering the brakes, and lost one wheel. I'm pretty sure that's when I lost the race. Coming out of the last turn there was still 350 meters to the finish, Ben started his sprint right out of the corner and got a large gap quickly. I came out of the last corner right on Paul's wheel, accelerating behind him and coming around and trying to close the gap. I closed the gap to within a bike length of by the finish line but it was just too far for me to pull a Cavendish:


Sunday was the 102 mile road race. I'm getting to spend some time with Ashley, which is a not such a common occurrence this summer, so I'll keep the report brief for now. The road race was a big 102 mile loop, so no laps at all which meant that Ashley and Jeremy's dad were literally racing around the course to the feed zones to get us water so we didn't end up dead on the side of the road. Greg and Dan both got into a group of 8 about 20 miles into the race. The field shut down after that point, letting the gap balloon to six minutes. After sixty miles and some bumpy KOM's Paul Martin opened up the hostilities, and for the next hour and a half Panther was "75% of the counter-attacks" (as described by another rider). The race up the road split up and Greg finished 2nd and Dan 4th. We got a bit of a lead out going for the finish. I sprinted with the JetFuel Team sprinter, and thanks to a 10 meter early bike throw on his part, took the field sprint for 8th.