Going Away

On May 23rd we fly to Turkey for a two week holiday. ("We" means wife, son, bike and I)
I return on June 9th.. meaning that I will be missing three weekends of New England crits.. including Mystic Velo Crit, Hartford Crit, Cyclonauts Crit, etc.. However.. put me down for the Nutmeg Classic on 6/21 and every other Crit which follows it through New Britain on 7/13. I expect to be flying by late June/early July.
Needless to say, with a two week vacation on the horizon, I'm wrapped around all kinds of axles here at work- a mountain of work needs to be accomplished before we head to Logan next Friday afternoon.

It's about time!: Gas prices influence bike sales

High Gas Prices mean more Bike Sales and Repairs
A real forehead slapper! Americans realize that they can use their "nutritional reserves" for fuel instead of gasoline to get from place to place. Thirty years of relatively low gasoline prices in this country has made Americans the most obese and unhealthy people on the planet. Maybe this will spark a reversal.

Milestones

I've looked forward to this post because as of this date I've finally completed a full year of riding and racing with the PowerTap (which I first used on May 12, 2007).
In the past year:
Distance: 7747 miles (12,467 km)
Duration: 443 hours
Since Jan 1st:
Distance: 3093 miles (4977 km)
Duration: 180 hours
It was also a big week for me in terms of time and mileage as well: 256 miles in 14 hours. (This excludes a 6.5 mile ride I did Saturday with my son Reis by my side- he's four)
Today I skipped the Wells Ave crit that I was planning to do, in favor of more family themed activities: a Mother's Day picnic at Goddard Park. We had a good time- grilled lots of steaks with some friends.. I wasn't done grumbling to myself under my breath until we got home.. which is when I promptly suited up and hit the road. Long sleeves were the right choice because it was mid fifties and windy.. So I set out to do my typical 3-hour ride/route- the one I really like. This time, I wore my HRM chest strap and put the Polar on my wrist- Of course I was more interested in the profile of the route than the HR.. Turns out that this 56 mile ride has 2420 feet of climbing... and my average HR was 148. Whatever. I started out slowwww.. (the HR chart below will show this) Legs were quite whipped from yesterday's "rhythm intervals".. which are basically 4:00 VOmax and then 4:00 recovery. Two sets of three with an extra 5:00 of rest in between the sets. Topped off with 30 minutes of tempo. They hurt.. more than the hill repeats I've been doing. They are an extra minute at the same intensity, with only half of the rest in between. So I was saying.. I started out slow today.. resolving to hold an average of high end zone 2 or low end zone 3.. Of course, I'm not guided by my HRM, I'm guided by the average watts reading. About an hour into this ride, I'm still sub-200w on average.. but my the time I hit the mid point, I'm up into the 215 range and suddenly feeling weirdly good.. not really good, just a little better. By the time I end the ride, I'm back down to 213w, but I feel fresh at the end.. like I could do more.. which I've heard is a good time to end a hard ride. The route was unchanged from before (April 5 was the previous date I did this course, when I was boasting about taking 10 minutes off my time from before) As it turns out, I took another 6 minutes off of that time, without really intending to (at least not during the first hour of the ride..) Here's another compilation of data- one showing the route profile and today's heart rate, one comparing today's ride with the last time I did this route, and still another showing you the last few weeks of ride data.. (Notice that the average distance for the past six weeks is a solid 200 miles). This stuff isn't intended as any kind of chest beating on my part.. I'm just interested in monitoring how the data evolves.. But on the other hand I don't think that riding almost 20 mph for three solid hours by myself is anything to sneeze at. I've done an untold number of "fast" group rides that were a lot slower. Whatever. Just looking for the positive in all of this: Very simply, I'm getting faster.. even though the training stress is making me tired and a touch weaker. Here's the data.. Click to enlarge:

Photos of 2008 Blue Hills Classic

Found a nice photo stream on Flickr and to my surprise, there I am!.. and I now realize how badly my helmet clashes with my kit. Yuck.
Check out the rest.

Nailed it.

I dreaded it a little bit.. okay a lot, especially since it was a highly stressful and energy consuming day.. But when I suited up and headed out on route 12, I was a new man. I started the first 20 minute interval at the beginning of some rolling hills and finished it off on Pippin Orchard Road. That will explain the slightly higher VI and slower speed. I held a tiny something in reserve and hit the target. With my current FT considered to be 271, looks like I did the correct amount of work. (Look at normalized power value)
Interval 2, exactly ten minutes later.. I decide I like Pippin Orchard Road a lot- it runs in between route 14 and route 12, it's relatively flat with wide shoulders, and it's about two miles end to end. I want to do the 2nd interval on flat roads, so that there's a lot less variability, like I get on the climbs. It's a more truthful interval I think.. I had to make three quick U-turns, but I sprinted back up to speed, so nothing was lost. As you can see, interval 2 was stronger than interval 1. I'm happy with that. I rest exactly ten minutes.
Interval 3 is only ten minutes, but I expect it to be the hardest. I was wrong. This is the one which I was able to really shine on- the numbers speak for themselves. Mission accomplished. Overall, the entire workout with warm up and rest and cool down went like this:

20:00 FTP 10:00 RI.. Repeat

I'm going to be wasted after tonight's scheduled workout::

20:00 WU

20:00 FTP

10:00 RI

20:00 FTP

10:00 RI

10:00 FTP

20:00 WD

My FTP is now set to 271 in the Peaks software.. but I just checked my 2008 Normalized Power Chart to date and it says my 60 minute Normalized Power is 277 (and that I did it during the Blue Hills Classic). At my present weight of 79 kg, that 3.5 watts per kilo, for whom it may interest.. This chart shows all norm power levels from 5:00 up.

Jiminy Jilikers

I was perusing the list of Pro-Am finishers and discovered two things:
1. That it was a 93 mile road race (wtf? note to self: AVOID J.P.R.R.)
2. That my good friend and coach, 38 year old Todd Scheske took a solid 30th place, in the Pro-Am, it appears.
From the kick-ass report that I read at Adam Jr's blog, it was a pretty epic fight to the finish..
Full results Jiminy Peak Road Race

Blue Hills Classic Race Report

Here's the 'more later' part:
Imagine Murat wringing his hands, looking out the window at the falling rain.. as wife and child sleep peacefully nearby. The struggle to avoid going back to bed was fought quite fiercely for a few minutes.. even while I slept- the snooze bar was struck twice to avoid this inevitable clash of character versus "weenie-ocrity". In the end, I resolved to do what winners do: "everything which losers are unwilling to do". HA.. ha.. Cut it pretty close too, because by the time I reached the parking lot and stood in the registration area, again wringing my hands, someone announced that I had five minutes to make up my mind- it was 35 minutes until the start. "Rain".. "Cold".. "Crashes".. "Forty dollars".. "You hate road races".. "Why are you here?".. are swirling through my mind as the rain pours, now harder than ever. Then.. who rolls into the pavillion? None other than team mates Ralf and Kyle- who have ridden from home in this mess. Well, that cinches it for me right there..

A half hour later I'm staging with the other victims of this unfortunate weather.. No warm-up, no stretching, and the race is ON right from the start. Immediately two are separated and up the road. Within a couple of miles, I move up and try to stay near the front. Next thing you know I'm rolling through the front, past a bunch of BikeBarn guys who were trying to keep the field tame and dormant. I could see the two up the road are within my striking range, meaning they have about 10 or 15 seconds on us at most. I accelerate smoothly, on the hoods and one minute later I discreetly find their wheel just before the second corner (turning off of 138) Now we are three and I settle into their rythym without skipping a beat. Not 30 seconds later, Mr O'Connor joins us and we are four. Four teams represented and a big BikeBarn team back there doing a good job of blocking, we were sure.. Fine and dandy. I'm doing my share, pulling through, but not really drilling it. Our team would rather have Matt K up the road than me.. and I'm there more to disrupt things than to contribute.. In the mean time I'm hoping that some pressure's off Matt for a short while and he's just cruising and letting others tire themselves out with chasing.. Nevertheless.. I know there's some vertical rise coming up and I don't want to blow up. Well, no amount of holding back was going to get me up and over the start/finish line with these guys. I tried.. I turned myself inside out but lost contact about 200m before the line. What seemed like 10-15 seconds later, the first chase group whizzes past me, Matt yells something supportive as he passes, and another chase group five seconds behind the first almost leaves me in the dust, but I manage to latch on and recover for the next 4-5 miles of lap 2.. felt pretty solid too by the time we reached the climb again. Kept myself at the front 2-3 guys for the first 1/4-1/2 mile of the climb- big ring- standing a lot- using my heft to my advantage as much as possible.. but to no avail. Again I'm shelled (with a few others) very near the top/finish line. Now it's a solo TT to limit the damage. I have a target up the road- a lone BikeBarn guy. So I keep it steady and we're together by the time we hit the climb again. Not wanting to be caught by the 45s, we do a good job of pacing ourselves up and over the climb, such that the 45s don't reach us until after we turn onto 138 for the last time. Then we're absorbed and decide we may as well ride this train to the finish. Careful to keep out of the way, there are about 4 or 5 of us 35s in the 45+ group. Last time up the climb, a lapse of paying attention let the BikeBarn fella up the road a piece. Oh well.. Whatever. I dig for the last 300 meters and get to within 3 seconds of him. I have no idea if I'm gunning for 20th place or 30th.. (36 started I think) As it turns out I finish 18th.. with Steve B and team mate Ralf right on my heels. Felt good to finish! I think I'm doing a better job this year of "finish what you start". It's ever so much more satisfying than quitting.

The thing I'm happy about is a couple of new Critical Power values- CP20 and CP60. Before today, my mbest CP20 was 265 (last September) Today I hit 275. Also last September, my best CP60 was 235, but today: 253! This means that my fitness/form as of this spring date is better than my peak summer form of 2007. Sounds kooky, I know- after all I'm getting dropped on easy climbs in road races.. but bear in mind that in 2007 I did my best racing in criteriums.. per usual.. I'm not a road racer- I do them only when there are no crits I can do. Coach and I are going to be winding me up pretty tight over the next few weeks.. I expect to feel tired and fatigued all through May. Come mid-June we'll be letting the spring really unwind and I should be flying in time for Nutmeg, Keith Berger, Crit Nationals, New Britain, Attleboro. Good things are coming my way..

I should take my own advice! Stick to crits Murat.. but these road races are essential in terms of TTFU. Oh well. I felt good today, believe it or not.. don't let the 18th place finish fool you. The numbers churned out by the Powertap tell a much more positive story, numbers worth celebrating about actually. More later..
Preliminary Millwork One Racing 35+ results:
4 Matt Kressy
18 Murat Altinbasak
20 Ralf Geiben Lynn
22 Kyle Gates

Stick to what you know!

That's my mantra- ESPECIALLY in matters of dining out. If you have found a restaurant which serves you quality food at a reasonable cost with good service- why go anywhere else? Why go to a place you haven't been to in two years? A disapointing $60-80 meal really stings.. It's like losing your last hand at the blackjack table. Nothing left to do but go home and think about the money you've wasted..

To protect the innocent I will refer to the restaurant we went to last night as "OG". Dear wife had a birthday and after getting home from my two hour hammer-fest we all jumped in the car and headed out. Control freak that I am, it was difficult to leave the dining decision to my wife, but after all, it was HER birthday. When she suggested the "OG" I said "Why not". We'd been there before and couldn't recall a bad experience there.. WHAT A MISTAKE.

Our server was an 18 year old with a short attention span. She never offered us water (which we would be needing in copious amounts, later on) The appetizer of chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and Calamari was AWFUL, and not worth 1/2 of the $9.95 we paid for it. My beer cost $4.75, her Diet coke cost $2.75.. Ugh. I chose a dish called "Mixed Grille", which left me saying "where's the beef".. Three hunks of chicken and three little pieces of red meat (cut? who the heck knows) I was asked with a straight face while ordering- how I want the meat cooked.. What a joke. They were all well done anyway. The worst part- everything from the bread to the salad to the appetizer to my six pieces of animal muscles to the mashed potatoes and "grilled" veggies.. were so SALTED that I was dying of thirst 1/4 of the way through my "meal". My wife had the same issues and left her food 1/2 eaten. Our son Reis- ate nothing. What a disappointment. Given the chance to eat this food for free, I would probably pass. Last night, I was required to bay nearly $60 for this mess. Never again..

Places we like: Haruki Japanese in Cranston or Providence! I eat lunch there twice a week (not cheap) but the food is fresh, clean, unsalted and always satisfying in a way that doesn't put you in a coma. Brain food. We've never left there unhappy. Bertucci's: We love their pizza! Some of their other Italian dishes aren't bad either, but at least they're not bullshit concoctions like at the "OG". Bertucci's keeps it simple. Love the bread they give away too. East Side Pockets on Thayer: The owners know us, they always give us extras and freebies when we go there, they even speak to us in Turkish out of simple courtesy (they're Syrian). The food is cheap and satisfying, made quick and tasty. This is why whenever we have out of town guests, we take them there at least once for teh "Thayer Street experience".

I know that dining out is taboo for many.. But if you must as we do.. stick to what you know. We all work way too hard for our money to take dumb and expensive chances on lousy food.

Hill repeats..

I will be on route 12 in Scituate shortly, burying myself as I repeatedly go up a certain one mile climb and coast down the other side. Bury, rest, repeat. 2-1/2 minutes at zone 5a, plus 30 seconds at zone 5b..
According to an old friend and mentor:
"Races are won by those who are most willing to suffer".

With a vengeance..

..is how I skipped today's ride. Ugh I don't even want to see the bike for a few days. I say that now but.. hill repeats await me tomorrow afternoon.
I have some new friends!: the infamous "third testicle" is paying a visit, and he's camped not far from the base of Mount EverAssed- a now dormant but very painful volcano on my crotch.. Man alive that hurts!- especially in the first 10-20 minutes of a ride.. I'm tempted to puncture it and maybe get some relief by spilling whatever the hell is inside.. The left calf has a knot in it which feels like a knife is being twisted in there.. It's always something. On the bright side, my knees are now rock solid and pain free..

It's glandular..

I am still in the 173-ish range (surprised?) depending on time of day.. and I hereby resolve to drop at least 4 kilos in time for the Hartford Crit on the 25th of May.. Don't want to look like pear shaped fat-ass when I don my brand new Millwork One skinsuit, do I?? Well.. that and I don't want to suffer so badly when I'm trying to climb. To help me lose the weight, I'm keeping a ten pound dumb-bell on the kitchen counter- a contant reminder of exactly what ten pounds means. These road races have me a little bit down in the dumps. Okay so I fell apart on the climb at Sturbridge.. not on the rollers or flats.. no need to beat myself up about it.. but it was more mental than anything else. I have this bad habit of withdrawing myself from a race long before the body has reached it's limits. If I anticipate severe difficulty (inexperience at road races pre-disposes me to expect the worst), even miles before reaching a climb, a switch has already been flipped in my mind, and it's telling me it's not worth killing myself in a race where I have no chance of placing. I'd rather lick my wounds, do some more proper training and rest and try again later, than slug it out in the red zone for 1-2 hours, hanging on by a thread and holding down/tasting my vomit. I don't race well unless my head is into it. My head doesn't get into it unless I visualize myself in the top ten. If I don't visualize myself in the top ten, I have a hard time justifying the suffering. It stops being fun. There needs to be hope. Is this such a bad habit? I'm not so sure. In my profession, I have this knack for sniffing out and avoiding un-necessary work. It keeps me ahead of the curve. At Sturbridge I could have done a better job of grabbing a wheel and sticking to it all the way up that first climb.. but by the time that I popped I had no gas left to match anyone else's pace. I was on my own. When I got to the finish at the end of lap one, Sandy asked if I was gonna finish. "Yes I am!" was followed by a lot of "am I really?" echoing in my mind.. Thoughts of a long drive home and getting no training and being $40 poorer kept me churning the pedals to the very end, regardless of how many minutes I was down.. How much of a difference would ten pounds have made? Go lift a full gallon container of milk and you tell me! It's only 8 pounds... I should not expect myself to be an excellent climber or road racer- I never have been!- and I'm not going to magically become excellent at climbing and road racing just because I have a large amount of base miles and hours. So when's the next criterium? I'll drive to New Jersey if I have to!.. As for the GVCC Classic of two weekends ago, I'm over it. Once I took a look at the results, I realized that over 1/2 of the field was DNF.. so I'm not so special after all. Now quit looking at my gut! I had just inhaled.

Yes Sturbridge..

Latest Performance Management Chart, showing November 18th thru today..

A great day for a bike race! Today it was less important where I finished, and more important that I just plain finish. Many are telling me that I might be overtrained, over-reached or whatever.. but I think it has more to do with me simply disliking road races. Today I was determined to try and finish with the main field.. so determined in fact that when a team mate flatted, I excused myself from waiting for him and helping him catch back up to the field. I won't forgive myself for that lapse in judgment, but at least I resolved to finish the race, and I did. Not sure how far down I was, but the 45+ field caught and passed me (Yes I hung there with them for a few miles, but I just wasn't inspired enough to turn myself inside out trying to hang onto the back of their main field- I ended up favoring my own pace over theirs..) Not long after that, I joined up with 3 or 4 others and we worked to limit the damage together.. Last time up the climb was such a relief.. though when I was at the base, the 35s who had already finished were already headed back down the hill.. Yeah I almost called it a day- many times- during lap no 2.. but having a few people to trade pulls with on lap 3 made the decision to finish the race, much easier. I know I came in close to DFL, but not quite. When's the next effing criterium please?

Below, my charts of recent weeks and all months beginning with May 2007- when I first put the Powertap into service.. May 12th to be exact. Could I be over trained? I have 7315 miles since last May 12. I have 3357 miles since November 18 (the day I started training again for 2008), and I have 2662 miles since January 1st.

Millwork One Racing's Matt Kressy made us proud again today with a top ten finish in today's stacked 35+ road race!

Time to just "Let go"

I really need to stop fretting about road races, about getting dropped, about being over-trained, about being a poor climber.. and just do as Tyler Durden says: Let the chips fall where they may.. Wish me luck.

Looking back upon the past couple of seasons.. I find that the only road races I completed are two Bob Beal Road Races and one Topsfield Circuit Race where I surprisingly scored a decent finish in a large Pro-Am field. And to think! I had no power mater back in 2006. I just had good form on a good day, mixed with a lot of determination and a little bit of luck.

Sturbridge?

As much as I want to race and have a grand old time.. I have to remind myself that I am not known for being an excellent road racer. I actually do a poor job of being pack fodder lately! I raced in Rochester Sunday, GVCC Classic Pro-1-2-3.. When I felt highly uncomfortable during te neutral opening miles, I knew I was in for a joyless day. Racing commenced on a right hand turn and everyone took off with guns blazing.. that is, all 25 of us. I later discover that that very first acceleration took me to 1120 watts.. WTF are we doing over 1000 watts in the opening kilometer of a 70 mile road race?? Give me a break! Twenty or so minutes later, I was riding all by myself.. hating road races, swearing to stick only to crits and getting a nice sunburn in the process.. From there, I met up with my kid brother- told him to drive himself home and that I was gonna salvage my day with a good 3 hour ride. What a death march! I could barely hold zone 1-2 and I was feeling very much like I had just started in this sport- weak and untrained.
Monday I did a one hour recovery ride- still in Rochester- and covered a lot of the old roads I trained on as a junior back in the late eighties. It is absolutely astonishing how much farmland has been transformed into suburban communities of 2500 square foot homes! Disgusting. Food prices got you down? Eat your house!
Tuesday we were back in town (drove back Monday night) so I rode to work easy, rode home easy- still feeling like 1/2 a man.. (skipped the hill repeats I was supposed to do!) Wednesday I repeated the same- 12.5 mile easy ride to work, repeat on the ride home. Legs still feel like mush and tank feeling empty.. Today I ride to work and start feeling a touch better.. strength coming back.. hey I think I can do my scheduled intervals tonight! And so I did. Nailed every single one of them without a single watt of slippage in the numbers, all the way to the end. Hard CP6 intervals in zone 5b.. each of the three sets topped off with a 30 second CP1 effort.
Sturbridge (?) Do I dare? Here's the thing.. I'll hate myself more if I don't bother to try, than if I try and fail. Besides, four of my newest team mates are going to be there.. and one of them needs apparel from me. I think it's a no-brainer.. but in the back of my mind I'll be having recurring thoughts of sprinting at 1100 watts in the GVCC Classic just to keep up with the field! That really sucked balls. An off day in a small and stacked Pro-Am field. Recipe for disaster.. Saturday- having team mates will help. I'll grab the wheel of Ralf or Adam or Kyle and just fixate on it I guess. Maybe form will be there for a change! Maybe letting the spring unwind a little bit these past few days will do the trick. Thanks for reading.

Tour of Turkey: Have you ever seen such a prize list?

Remember that a Euro is worth more than a US dollar!
This total purse is worth 160,000 Euros- about $200,000 I think.
http://www.tourofturkey.org/awards.aspx

Rick Newhouse Criterium

I'm dead tired after a seven hour drive back from Rochester, so I may cut this short..
Saturday I raced the 35+ at Ninigret and was having a pretty good day.. until I discovered that the weird bouncy feeling in the rear tire which began 1/2 way through the race, was in fact a slow leak.. I must have looked pretty silly looking down at my tire after every corner. The same thing happened at Attleboro last year, and it turned out to NOT be a flat- just some slippiness in the corners.. so I shrugged it off as the same issue- after all these were brand spankin new Conti 4000S tires! With two laps to go I finally saw the tire for what it really was- 40 psi of soft mushy rubber. With my team mate Adam Sternfield up the road with Team Benidorm rider Wade, I was hoping I could just coast across the line and to hell with sprinting for 7th.. but then when they were overtaken with 1/2 lap left to go, I resolved to finish this thing without disgracing myself. So when a right handed surge erupted in the final bend, I followed it as best I could, put my head down and sprinted in the saddle- to take 6th in the field sprint (10th overall, 4 escaped early) A disappointment that they changed the prize list to 8 deep instead of 10.. Oh well! Such is bike racing..

Week of unrest (?)

Three hour ride after work today- rode home in the moonlight.. Who does three hour rides during a "rest week"?
Did 57 miles in 3:09:20.. same exact route as I did a couple Saturdays ago.
Was supposed to be a zone 2 leg opener, and it was.. Only 180w averaged.. but how on earth did I take a minute off of a previous time which required 211 watts? Was it the excess apparel? Extra bottle? Wind? Extra food I was carrying? Colder temp? Shoe covers? I don't know! but today's 30 watt drop SHOULD have given a time that was SLOWER, not faster. Maybe I just need to zero the torque or something.. Regardless- I took it real easy tonight- no mistake about that! In the small ring for most of the ride! Got out of the saddle for every little rise.. Never put myself in difficulty.. Maybe it's the new Continental 4000S tires I mounted last week? Seriously, this is weird. I guess training in nice weather requires less power.. Either that or my PT is an unreliable POS.

Tour of Turkey: Pettachi Wins Stage 2!

Money can't buy you love! The Tour of Turkey evolved in the span of one year, from having a 15,000 Euro purse to having a 150,000 Euro purse.. attracting all kinds of ProTour guns to the start of the opening criterium in Istanbul on Sunday. To wit, Mr Pettachi himself won yesterday's stage.. Too bad that Velo News couldn't be bothered to even register a blip on their radar. Really a sad shame. It kind of reinforces my belief that to many, it's not bike racing unless it is a WASP doing the pedaling/promoting. Forgive my cynicism, but it is apathy such as this which prevents the development of bike racing programs in the Middle East from taking root and growing. Such a waste that 150,000 Euros will be handed over to riders from Europe while the Turkish National Team suffers from a lack of equipment, bikes, apparel, HRMs and all of the other things we take for granted.

Please visit the official site of the International Presidency Tour of Turkey: http://www.tourofturkey.org/

In all of the years I've been following it, this is the classiest and most professional production ever seen. There are photos, results, course maps, profiles, the works.. No offense folks, but it's a heck of a lot more interesting that the number of people who signed up for the 'epic' Battenkill road race!

So much to report..

..but I must be brief. I tried to race the Chris Hinds Pro-1-2-3 on Saturday, and for whatever reason I completely and suddenly fell apart in the 30th minute. Fine and dandy. I knew I wouldn't be in race form anyway.. Save it for the 35+ later on.. Well the 35+ was called after Lap No 1 due to lightning.. We had to wait 10 minutes to restart, where it was announced that we would be racing another 35 minutes, barring any more lightning.. Then it began to rain really hard.. I toughed it out to the end, and chewed through the handlebars to try to get a top ten finish.. but fell short by a couple of places. 12th. Oh well- no regrets and no reason to fret.. I am flush with TSS from the past 4 weeks and due for serious rest this next week.
Ventured north to Wells Ave this morning and found the fields combined with 5 minutes before start! I've never pinned a number on so fast. Warm up? Pfffft. I was one the bike in no time, hammering like crazy from the get-go. Well, with an unadvantageous start, I missed the three man break which went from the gun and were never caught (this is a recurring theme at Wells lately..) So it was a race of riding around the blockers and trying to gain time on the escapees.. Who were they? I don't know but I salute their resolve, strength and success. You'll see them top three in the Wells results soon. As for me, I took a $5 prime (2nd in the two place prime actually) and then with a couple of laps to go, my new team mates did a fantastic job of setting the table for me to take the field sprint. 4th at Wells Ave for me.. very cool. Ralf and Kyle know what to do.. and they do it very well. I'm honored that they put faith in me and I'm happy that I didn't let them down. I'll be looking for chances to repay the favor. Thanks for reading. More later, maybe.