Saturday, March 23, 2019

Vail Lake US Cup 2019

Looking forward to later in the season, this weekend was super important because it would give us call ups for nationals and be a determining factor in our placement. The SoCal Devo team all arrived at coach Jason's trailer at 7:00 in the morning to do team stretches. We stretched for about 25-30 minutes and then realized that we didn't have too long before we started. We got all our gear together and started our warm up. When we arrived at the line there was a tone of people lined up in our group. I was racing the 17-18 category but I also went off with the 15-16 and 19-29 groups so it was a very large wave of riders. I ended up lining up in the very back with only a few guys behind me. I knew that I needed to make my way through the group as fast as possible. I made a couple of good passes and got ahead of a few guys but was still 15 to 20 riders back. I locked bars with 2 people in the start just because there was so many of us and there was no room on the road. Once we were in the first singletrack everyone held their place until we got to another fire road. Every chance I got I would try to gain a few places just to get a little bit closer to the front. The group stayed together for the most part, for the first two laps. Any time a gap would form between two riders the other riders in the back would get around the one that was slowing down and they would push him off the back.
At this point in the race, one of my SoCal Devo teammates, Adin Papell, was right behind me. The second lap was where the front of the pack made there attack and me, not making up enough places couldn't react to there attack because I was too far back.  Now Adin and I were working together making up places in the race. By the end middle of the lap though he fell off my wheel leaving me alone to chase people down. I caught a few adults from the other groups and worked with them for a small amount of time until they couldn't hold my wheel. At the start of the third lap, I was all by my self with a few people just barely out for sight. I was about a third of the way done with the lap going up a fire road when I looked back and saw four or five guys from the endurance category along with another one of my teammate, Hunter Zubick, on the back of their group. I still had a decent gap on them but I knew they would catch me eventually. I got into the decent and to the bottom and they caught me on the next climb. We all stayed together and Hunter and I were trying to hang on as long as we could so we could use them to bring us back to the front of our group.
The fourth lap started and I was still feeling really fresh and good to go. We were about a fourth of the way done with the lap when one of the endurance riders in the front of our group messed up going up a technical climb and everyone behind him, including Hunter and I, all had to get off our bikes and run past him. The riders that managed to be in front of him took off and got a huge gap while we were all trying to get on our bikes. I was right behind Hunter going up the next long fire road and we went right around the other endurance racers and started pacelining with one of them for the whole climb. As soon as we hit the single track though, Hunter And I left the other rider that was with us and took off down the descent. Unfortunately, halfway down my right clip I could fell was loose and I was worried that if I pulled up too hard that my foot would fly off the peddle leaving me no way to clip back in. This was in the back of my head the whole rest of the race and because of that I didn't lay down a big attack to pass Hunter, I was hoping I could save it till the end. It didn't end up working out that way and he went on the climb but didn't get too much of a gap because I definitely hadn't given up. Those few seconds gave him the little edge in the finishing stretch that I couldn't come past him. Little did we know we were fighting for first and second the whole time and I got second. We thought we were mid-pack because of all the other rider in front of us but turns out they were all in different categories.
My first SoCal Devo race of the year was awesome and was only possible because of my amazing sponsors including our new kit sponsor Canari. Thanks to Ellsworth bikes, Rudy Project, Kenda tires, ESI grips, Phyisiophix, Scicon bags, Gup industries, and Dryve wheels.     















  

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