The state championship road race was not really a major goal for me in this, my first season. After crashing out of the Tour of Austin and spending the following month barely training while my bike was being mended, I assumed I was not in top condition and finishing at all seemed like a long shot. So little was I thinking about the podium that I did not even muster up the energy to warm up more than the ride to the start line, but sometimes things just work out. I am not one for wet and windy descents so I lost postion on all the downhills, but my 130 lb frame easily caught back up when the road leveled out or pointed upwards. It was clear to me from the start that of all the pack, my former teammates Cody foster and Zach Bergh would be the ones to beat so I stuck to them like white on rice. But in the one instant I was not with Cody or Zach, Cody’s wheel slipped on a white line and the two were down in a flash.
Moorhead Wins
A 5-man move went up the road and I found myself as the only man willing to lead a chase. But by the time I caught up to the lead group—which was now a group of two and another of three a little further up – only Redding Shelby had been able to hold on, so the four of us started rotating. The three up the road were, as it turned out, 15/16 year olds and inconsequential to our 17/18 race, but my chase compatriots were content to leave me oblivious to this fact and give huge Superman pulls up and down hills while they would just cycle through nice and easy. On one such pull up a steep climb we dropped Redding and our race came down to just three: Me, Steve Liguori, and Kyle Anderson. Well we just rotated like that almost all the way to the finish.
At about 1k to go Steve dropped his chain and he was out so it was a 2-up sprint and I was under the impression I was good at those. But a miscommunication with a teammate at the start left me under the impression that I had about another mile or so before the line. So I gladly pulled through one last time and Kyle slotted in, behind me for the last time of the race. At 200m I jumped as hard as I could and opened a gap but I could not hold in and he took the sprint by 2 bike lengths. Well second is not bad, and under the circumstances I could not have been happier.
The last race of my season was the final week of the Driveway series. It has been weekly training crit for me, with varying amounts of success. While I took a couple wins, a monthly overall and a handful of podiums in the 4/5’s, since I moved up to the 3/4’s I was far less consistent. A second place and a host of top 10 or 15 finishes were about it—the victory to prove my metal had eluded me. For October I had decided to be aggressive and not only follow, but also lead. This week was no different. Maybe five minutes in I got in a break of three and we started to work making a lead and steal primes. Over the next half hour it slowly spread to around 16 seconds, while back in the pack a few guys tried to jump the gap to no avail. That is, until AT&T decided that two out of three primes was good enough for us. We passed the finish line expecting to hear the time split, but instead were given the cryptic message “Murff, its Murff.” While we debated what that could possibly mean, James Murff led the pack back up to us and I relegated myself to the role of domestique for a my teammate Slim.
A few attacks were throne out and Slim was in a good position, about 7 from the front in a thinning pack of about 20. That was not good enough for me, so at five laps to go I made another jump to make it a little more selective and ended up off the front with two other guys. And that’s how the final five laps went. Coming into the final chicane I knew from experience that the first one out had a good likelihood of being the first one across the line so I sprinted in, carved as tight a line as I ever have, and sprinted out. It took a quick double take before I realized I was alone across the line, and another double take to make sure I was not one lap early. Not a bad way to end my first season if I do say so myself; not with a whimper but a bang.
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