Marty Road Race; April 30th

After the last two races with a bit of hills, this week I will be racing in Marty. It is called the "Sprinters Race". I will be riding in a combined cat 4 and 5 field this week. So I am looking forward to see what difference the cat 4 riders will make in the race itself. The whole week the weather predictions for Saturday did not look very promising, but luckely the farther I drive away from the Twin Cities, the farther North I go; the less rain I encounter and the sunnier it gets. A lot of worries for nothing. It looks like it will be sunny and dry in the race. Arriving in Marty it looks like the registration is in a little school right across the Church; that's about all there is in Marty, a little town. Like always the organization is a little chaotic and I have to look out for where they will stage the riders. I get recognized by some fellow riders from the last 2 weeks which is always nice, asking me if I would go for the tripple today. I wasn't so sure before the race, having in mind the fact we were racing cat 4 aswell.

The first lap goes at such a moderate pace that it makes me really nervous. Again riding in a peleton of more than 30 people ( There were 35 riders registered for today's race) with alot of crosswinds and a lot of touching breaks. But I survive the first lap deep in the belly of the peleton; with wasting no efforts whatsoever.
Again I was able to put myself in positions so I would not catch too much wind. I could feel the difference in riding with cat 4 riders though. Although the pace was moderate, it is let's say at least 3 mph faster than a cat 5 race.

In the second lap ( there are 3 laps in total; The race is 48 miles long this weekend) I keep on hiding out in the peleton waiting for the right moment to break away from the group. When the peleton starts making waivers in the crosswinds; as a Belgian rider...This is way too tempting... to ride past the waivers and start my break away right there. I ride to the head of the race and start driving on the complete right side of the road. I start driving just a little bit faster and immediatly I have a gap on the peleton. 1 rider decides to join me in my break away. It is a rider from the U of M; we immediatly understand we need to work together and that is what we do. After taking a few turns I realize I can easily drop my fellow rider and go solo from there. My guts tell me to do so, but my brain decides to not drop him and eat his plate first before I drop him. We finish the second lap and there is a 10 mile headwind ahead of us. We still work good together; although I do way more work that he does . Still I see no peleton and I decide to not drop him and keep on riding together. It is way easier this week to stay ahead of the peleton, or maybe my legs reached absolute top shape this weekend. With 5 miles to go there is no peleton near us. We have more than 1,5 minute of a gap. My fellow rider talked alot to me during the race to keep the pace down, but with 5 miles to go, I felt I should break away,  he would be able to take second place that way, and I would like to finish solo. There I go in the tailwind. I easily top 35 mph and ride to my 3rd US victory.
Time now for some decompression, vacation in California with my dearest friends from Belgium; this to be ready for the 2nd half of the season which will start in July.
Oh the price....45$ :) Cash!!!!! And when I got home delicious chicken prepared by my lovely wife.


Euer,
Joris