Finally.

It's been a long time since I felt like a rode a good race and now after Sunday's ride I feel like the momentum is finally working with me in the direction that I've been trying so hard to go... forward. In most of the other races that I've done since leaving Seattle I felt like I was constantly struggling to hold my ground in the race with the idea of moving through the groups of other racers an unlikely possiblity. I was hoping that this feeling of going backwards could be attributed to the enormous volume of driving and the constantly changing environment, but an excuse regardless of how good is still just an excuse. So with all of that apparently behind me this past weekend my legs felt wicked awesome and after a slow closed up race on Satruday I had the day I was looking for in Northampton at the Cycle-Smart International. Begining the day with a not so good night of sleep on the living room couch, it was only made worst by my stomach feeling a bit flipped after the previous night's post race Mexican food. After getting my stomach back on track it was time to drive the ten long, grueling minutes to the race course where I had plenty of time to pre-ride and prepare for the race. The race was put on by my friend Steve Weller and he did an awesome job getting everything dialed for the day of excitement, despite having a late 3:30 start time on the first day of day light savings time that caused for an unexpected twilight finish to the elite mens race. After nearly running over the fallen Davide Fratini (Colivita-Sutter Home) mid way through the first lap I did my best to keep my foward motion and move my way through the field of riders that were starting to string out along the course. Luckily for me there wasn't any advantage to riding in a group on this course allowing for me to take my own lines and set my own tempo for most of the race. With 4 laps to go in the race I finally settled into a group after I caught a couple of riders, first year u23 Jerome Townsend and former Giro d'Italia rider Justin Spinelli, they latched onto my wheel as I pulled through and only Spinelli was willing or able to offer a pull on the front. I was getting a little tired of the two of them because Townsend wouldn't pull and I felt like Spinelli was getting in my way and slowing me down more that he was actually helping. After about a lap with these two Fratini managed to ride up to the back of our trio and sat on until two laps to go, where he then launched a hard attack soon after we hit the paved finishing straight that only I could follow. He gapped me off a bit on one of the grassy sections but I kept him close in sight as the gap started to open to the dropped Townsend and Spinelli while it simultaniously started to close in on the three riders in front consisting of Jamie Driscoll, Matt White (both Fiordifrutta) and Ryan Leech. I charged all the way to the finish and almost managed to snag Fratini on the line, unfortunately for me it wasn't to be and he took the last UCI point away with his tenth place. Fratini and I finished on the same time and were less than twenty seconds to that next group of three which is encouraging for me. I just finished up with a solid day of training here at the Hadley, MA farm house, that is home to the likes of Matt White, Jeremy Powers, Steve Weller, Al Donahue, and Brian Hayes. I'm planning on hanging out with these dudes for a few more days before getting back on the road for the following weekend. The next race is in New Jersey and I can't wait. Oh yeah the guy pictured above somehow managed to get on course while we were racing making for an unexpected moving obstacle.