The race start was fairly uneventful. I had a great start and quickly started driving the front edge of the field. As Chris passed me, he said that we should try to string the race out and see what they can handle. We spent the next 10 minutes or so doing just that. I then tucked myself into the field, but I worked hard to stay near the front. I found myself drifting too far back on a couple laps. My definition of too far back is when I had to brake in the turns. When I was properly positioned, I could just coast into the turn and accelerate out of it.
With 5 laps to go, Chris and I both got caught up in the only crash of the day. I saw the rider two guys in front of me go down in turn 2, so I started moving to the guy in front of me's left to try to take the clear line around the mess about to form in front of me. Unfortunately, the guy in front of me also moved left and got caught up with the guy in front of him. Seeing that I was going to go down, I somehow quickly shifted to aim my body to land in the grass. Somehow, I succeeded; however, my rear wheel must have hit something. I heard a pop while I was getting back on my bike, assuming it was a broken spoke. I got back on my bike as quickly as I could to chase back onto the field. Thankfully a few of the other casualties from the crash were also trying to chase back on and not quitting. We eventually formed a little group of four riders, including Chris and myself, charging after the field. As we kept racing through the remaining laps, we kept picking up more riders who were shelled from the main group. With two laps to go, Alex (from Kenosha Velosport) mentioned that my rear was wobbling (stupid broken spoke). I took a few seconds to open my rear brake to make sure that my wheel had clearance.
As we hit the final lap, Chris started to drive the front to break people off of our wheels. Seeing that he was close to gassed, Alex jumped hard. I knew that I needed to catch him, but sprinting to catch back on would just waste what little energy I had left and make it harder for Chris to follow my wheel. As we came out of turn three and into the wind, I was able to pull myself and Chris back onto Alex's wheel. Knowing that he was getting gassed in the wind, my plan was to force Alex to drive me to the line. Unfortunately, Chris came around to try to put in one more effort and crush Alex, but his move only gave Alex a bit of a rest before the sprint (we did not communicate what to do in this case). When Alex jumped with only a few hundred meters from the line, I followed his wheel. As we closed in, I hit the gas and tore around him, taking the sprint for the leftover riders. I crossed the line 29th and Chris took 31st out of the 39 finishers. While I was happy I took the sprint, I was pissed because my legs felt great and I was crashed out of contention. I knew I could have been quite good in the field sprint. Oh well. There's always next time.
After the race, I was riding my bike back to Chris' truck (he graciously agreed to get myself and Kari home, since my bike was out of commission). During this time, my rear derailleur completely snapped in half and broke off the hanger. Instead of a simple broken spoke, I ended up with a pretty devastated bike. Thankfully, this happened at about 15 mph instead of during the race at speeds of 25-30 mph. Here are some photos of the bike, courtesy of Ryan Larson at Emery's:
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