Had a blast winning Bariani Road Race last weekend and working for an
@andrewcxrr podium at Land Park Crit as a guest rider for my favorite U.S. road squad,
@volerfactoryracing . Can’t wait to tear it up at Redlands with these young guns. RR recap below.
Alex Akins, winner of the previous day’s crit and the previous year’s Bariani, and one of 4 strong Terun riders in our dwindling breakaway, took an unusually conspicuous pull at mile 69/100 as we turned out of the stiff headwind into 7 straight miles of gusty crosswind. I tucked in on his wheel as he somewhat surprisingly left room for me and a few others to echelon across the road, rather than trying to gutter us out of the angular draft of the feisty breeze. “We gotta pull hard enough to keep Tyler from attacking!” he called out as he flicked me through, referring to Tyler WIliams of Legion, who had consistently attacked at the start of the crosswind section on the prior laps. Thirty seconds later—sensing vulnerability—I lit it up, attacking at the edge of the road and forcing the rest of the group to chase me without the benefit of my draft. I pushed hard without going into the red, but the group didn’t let go. Another big attack, and the pace slowed to recovery level. One more hard jump from the back of the group, timed to make it impossible to cover without a hard acceleration up a 6% grade, and I was clear, quickly building up a one minute gap and allowing myself to think I might have a chance at sticking this one solo. 25 miles of chewing on my stem later (see the last slide), I barely held off a hard charging Williams and Akins to seal the deal as twinges of cramps threatened to lock up my legs.
It was hugely helpful to have teammates
@jammin_ginger_13 and
@06_pbock covering moves in the initial breakaway. And I know
@andrewcxrr would have made an impact on the race if he hadn’t flatted immediately after a heroic 45 minute effort to bridge up to us 🥴
Thanks to
@gbeliera for the sweet photos!
