One of these things is not like the others.....

This weekend was fast, and fun. Not crazy fast, but pretty quick. My form is good again, and after a leisurely ride on Monday I felt good as I headed off to Eldo for the Tuesday night showdown. One thing to remember, Sunday was a major NRC event. Every pro team had their A-Team there and apparently some of them decided to stick around for a few days and get some training in around sunny SoCal. Back to Tuesday evening.

I roll in very early and get an hour+ worth of laps in. As I entered the parking lot one thing made itself very apparent to me...this was not going to be a typical Eldo night. Let's do a quick run down of some of the suspects perusing the parking lot. Strickler (mulitple National Championships and all around hammer head), Ryan Barrett (former NetZero Hero, current UT resident, and all around hammer head), Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing powerhouse sprinter, winner of MBGP), John Cantwell (Jittery Joe fast man), and some guy name Tony Cruz (not sure what his deal is). Add in the usual fast guys and you can see where this is headed. Lap 1, turn 1, off goes Barrett. Tommy was in the 7 man group so I was sitting in. I knew it wasn't going anywhere, as it only had Barrett in there of all the really strong boys.

It came back (told you), and then it was attack, go fast, attack, go faster, attack, go fast. Notice the absence of the term "caught and slowed down"? That's because we didn't do that. We caught and kept on trucking which meant the guys who were firing off bullets weren't getting very far when they did, and were back in the group rather quickly. I found this Tony fellow moving up and decided he looked like a good wheel to sit on. WRONG!!! We proceeded to the front where he decided the pace was a bit too slow for his liking and upped the speed to about 33. Arm flick, and it was my turn to pull through. I did, and when I looked back it was near detonation. So both Tony and I slipped back a ways, recouped and as luck would have it (I can boast I new it was coming) Tony did it again. Hoping for a complete denoation this time I pulled through again and sure enough, KA-BOOM!!!! Guys were popping and gapping all over the place. We kept rolling much to my shagrin. A quick look around and we had about 7. Me, all the above mentioned fast men, plus Nate, and a few others. Soon the few others were gone, and to my surprise Nate went bye-bye as well. At this point I would invite you to re-read the title of this post. I'll give you a minute......done? Good. Now please look at the picture below.



Which one of these is not like the others? I will give you a hint.....IT'S ME!!! After 3 laps with these maniacs, I was very surprised to see a group of 15 or so catch us. The peleton was now completely over it and about a half hour behind us. The good news was I had Tommy and Kirk in the group now. My legs were toast, and I told Tommy we should make sure the pace stayed high to ward off any future attacks. No doing. He said they pacelined like crazy men (the entire group) just to catch us. Then asked what the hell we were doing up there, and how were we going that fast? Beats me, I was cross eyed almost the entire time.

It came down to a sprint and I got stuck on the front with 1k to go. The group surged I tried to get a good spot, but my legs were done, so I left it to the others, and as luck would have it Tommy got 2nd.

Interesting facts from Eldo:
1. Average speed was 28.9 mph
1. We put 3 guys in the top 15 out of the break
1. No one carshed (huge plus when we are that tired)
1. Bahati tried for a solo victory only to come up a 1/2 lap short

4th of July festivities this weekend. Don't blow any of your fingers off with fire crackers.