After tactical mistakes in both the Wente Road Race and at Cat's Hill, the AMD-Discovery Channel Junior team turned to the more experienced masters for tactics advice. One week and two dozen helpful emails later, we put up our best result so far this season. With the advice from the masters, we made a game plan before the race started, which was to form a small group of elite riders by riding tempo on the hills. Then we would take turns attacking and attacking until the opponents cracked. Never have I seen a plan work more to perfection (then again I have not seen very much).
As usual at this race, the start times were pushed back 20 minutes, so no one was really warm at the start after waiting around for so long. After the short promenade on the service road, the race kicked off with Daniel going to the front and riding tempo to keep the pace high. He had said before the race that he was there to help us, and he did just that by covering all the early moves and keeping the pace high when no one else wanted to. Nothing really happened until the first significant climb of the day known as Mama Bear. Sticking to our plan, all four AMD riders (Joel, Daniel, Davis, and me) went to the front and set a pace that only a few could follow. At the top of Mama Bear the group had been reduced from 35ish to about 12. On Papa Bear, we put our plan back to work and took turns attacking and counter attacking until the group was down to seven riders: the four of us, Edan (Davis), Peter (Tieni Duro), and Ryan Eastman (Team Swift). AMD kept the pressure on with a high speed attack by Joel on the downhill and then counter attacks by the rest of us. Edan attacked just after passing the start area and we decided to let him dangle out in front of us for awhile hoping that he would run out of gas. We actually lost him a little ways up the road because the Pro 1-2 field passed us at that point. Just before turning right off the main road we caught Edan and the group was back to seven. After the right handed turn, there is a false flat/small hill which goes for about 3/4 of a mile and I decided to test my luck again by attacking. I think I caught the three opponents by surprise and only Ryan got onto to my wheel. I noticed we had a gap on the rest of the field so I put my head down and accelerated again this time dropping Ryan. As I crested the small hill, I had about a 15-20 second lead. I was still about 8 or so miles from the finish so I did not expect to stay away, but the gap grew wider and wider until I could no longer see them behind me. There were so many other groups on the road that I was not sure if they were still chasing or not. I kept it up until the finish notching my second win of the season and my first since coming back from a broken hand. Joel brought in the field sprint for second and Daniel was close behind him for third. Davis rolled in for a strong 7th place finish. It was truly a strong performance by the team and everyone contributed to the sweep in the podium. Nice ride guys!
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