25 miles of mostly flat road with fast speeds and normally hot and windy conditions.
This year was no exception.
We headed north with a brisk tailwind and pace was high from the start.
A couple of guys tried to break away, but the main group just let them get so far before they realized they were not going to leave us behind. We turned west to Lansing and the group finally started to break up a bit with the crosswinds. By the time we turned north again, we were down to 20 or so in the lead group.
As we neared the next corner (and prepared for more cross winds), I decided to give it a go. I broke off the front and took the corner at speed to give myself a nice 100 yard lead. I put my head down and tried to keep a high tempo. After several miles, the group rolled up to me. It appeared we were down a few more riders.
As we turned south and into a headwind, we had about 12 riders in the lead group and we were increasing the distance back to the next chase group.
We kept the speed up by getting into a nice rotation (even if only half our group did the work).
As we turned south on the final home stretch, several guys started playing the "I'm not going to go first" game. So again, I decided I would press the issue. I took off with my head down and decided I was going to pull all the way to the end.
About 500 yards to go the group went around me and within a few second the sprint began. I dug deep to stay on the back and as we neared the finish several riders sat up and I went by them to finish in the top 10 (actually 7th, I think).
Silver Cycling was well repressented (even if we didn't win the overall trophy): Silver took 1st in the 60+, Legs 1st in 50-59, Espresso 2nd in 50-59, me 3rd in 50-59, SeaRay got 2nd in the 40-49 group, and Andy was 3rd in the 40-49 division.
Afterward, we hung out under a nice shade tree with cold beer. Even the guys from Rochester (Steve, James, and Lew) and Flanders (Jay W.) came over to share a beer. So everyone in the final group was sitting around cooling off and having some fun conversations.
Great time!
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