Wards Ferry Road Race

one of the laps

finishin climb/sprint

stick your tongue out if it hurts

ouch

Elite 3 2nd Place

Another day in the foothills! Lindsay and Sam came down to my house the day before and we went for a little spin, it was super windy. We had an awesome dinner made by my father, some manicotti. We had to wake at 3 and got a bit a food before heading out. Lucky for me, my dad was willing to drive us, so we got to sleep in the car, even if it was pretty uncomfortable.

We got to the race early and went out for a warm up for a bit. Then the race was off and immediately there was carnage behind us. Some guy hit our friend from Whole Athlete, Peter Nicholson. Peter was left with worse than our junior gears having only being able to get into his 17.

We made it to the first big descent and the road was messed up, full of gravel and dirt. Then there was a huge truck and of course those cat. 3’s start blasting past it like madmen, so we had to go blasting past as well.

The course was awesome, up and down the whole time and we were having a blast, except there were very few sections to throw down our Clif Shots.

As I went through the feed zone on the 4th lap my dad told me to take a risk, then on the big climb I took off. I went solo for about 5 miles until I was caught on the descent with my junior gears. After the descent Ryan attacked and he was killing it.

As I was riding along I could hear the other teams asking if the swift kid was back and they saw me and thought that I was back and didn’t realize that Ryan had gone. I thought that Ryan had a chance, but I just sat trying to save it for the sprint.

On the 5th lap Ryan was caught on the big descent. Coach Troy said that if Ryan did not have junior gears then he could have held it. Ryan and I sat near the front making sure that nothing else went without us.

As we started the last few rollers the front of the field slowed dramatically and I felt some guy caught on my wheel, I kept going as I heard him crash in the ditch. We started the last descent before the final finishing stretch and Z-team rider attacked. I told Ryan to get on his wheel, which he did. Then on the little descent he couldn’t stay with him with the junior gears. I whipped it up in the sprint and caught a few guys that went too early and died, but I was never able to catch the Z-team rider, so I finished in 2nd. Ryan died in the sprint and finished in 13th. Overall it was a good day and I got an awesome neon orange Velo-Promo T-shirt.