I placed 4th, only a few seconds out of 2nd place (John Murphy from HealthNet crushed us all by 30 seconds. The stage race continued without me for the next couple of days. I wasn't in town to race, and hanging out with family took priority over trying to keep my 4th overall in a local race. I trained both days, riding almost 100 miles on Saturday.
Sunday was a crit in Gainesville, GA. I was active in breaks, but nothing got too far. With 10 laps to go, a large move I was in came back, and I countered it alone. I built up a decent gap, but I went a little too early, and was caught with 4-5 laps to go.
Monday was the finale for a stage race: a 1 hr crit in Buford. Toshiba was trying desperately to get Frank Travieso off the front, hoping to pick up the 16 seconds he needed to beat John Murphy for the stage race overall. Their tactic was to get another one of their high-placed riders into a break, force Murphy to bring it back, and then have Frank counter. I bridged the early move, which contained Bobby Sweeting (Toshiba), Tim Henry (Jittery Joes), and 5 other strong riders. Tim was working for John Murphy, so he didn't help much. The plan backfired on Toshiba, as Bobby got the intermediate time bonuses that his teammate needed, but the break failed to gain the time needed to win the stage race.
With 10 laps to go, I attacked the break with Tim Henry. It was a great tactic, since Bobby was forced to do the chasing alone, and Tim and I stuck it to the line. I botched the last couple of laps: assuming that Tim was too fresh for an attack to work, I took monster pulls to keep us clear of the chase, and lost the two-up sprint. In retrospect, a few attacks would have been a good idea, since I should know I'll never win a two-up sprint. Next time...
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