The day after the Trooper race, I headed over to CT for the Bethel Spring Series. The Bethel Spring Series is held in an "industrial park" on an 0.8 mile course punctuated with a sharp, short uphill finish, a long gradually descending back stretch, and of course wind. It is a great series, a safe course, and usually attracts fairly clean racers. Given the crowded Trooper race the day before overloaded with poor behavior, a clean race would be a welcome change. The race was a bit of a question mark for me because I hadn't really saved myself for racing that week, instead plugging away at training in an attempt to get back on track from losing most of March due to illness. I was still lacking high end...going into a race that requires plenty of high end, repeatedly. Another factor was that one of my teammates was in the yellow jersey...except he was in the yellow jersey in Europe. Slight problem, thus we were out to prevent those closest in the points competition from winning. Etsu, our fearless team leader, dispensed the race orders and we were off.
The race started with a bang as is usual for criterium races. On of the rival teams, SixCycles, showed up with a full complement of riders in an attempt to put their breakaway artist into the yellow. We had our ace up our sleeve in the form of Ira, a super strong and extremely savvy racer with a sleeper sprint. The first four laps felt like a boxing match between FGX Racing and SixCycles. SixCycles was determined to get some of their guys off the front and were constantly attacking. We of course had to continually cover all of those attacks and shut them down. Eventually things settled down after several laps which was a good thing because I had been at the front for the entire first volley and was gassed. I drifted to the back to seek some shelter and recover as other took up the guard duty at the front. Eventually a few rider slipped away and then the bridge attempts began. Several competitors took their shots with a few succeeding at dragging some of our guys up to the growing break. Eventually the break solidified and we were happy with the make-up which included three of our guys. That was until the SixCycles breakaway artist and yellow jersey threat moved to the front. To be safe, I slotted in behind my teammate who was covering him. As we hit the climb, my teammate let a gap open, apparently exhausted from the early fighting, and the SixCycles guy surged hard to snap the elastic. I hammered around my teammate but the damage was already done. The SixCycles guy was just up the road and we were now off the front bridging. We turned onto the back stretch which was smack into a nasty headwind this week and I hammered and stabilize the gap. The SixCycles guy caught another solo guy and took a brief breather. I closed the gap down but as soon as I made contact, the SixCycles guy attacked fully knowing I would be feeling the effort. He was right...and that was also a nice tactical move. I could not respond and by the time I had recovered enough over the next 10 seconds or so, it was over and he was gone. Now sitting in no man's land, I decided there wasn't much I could do given my limited fitness...I simply didn't have the high end to complete the bridge. I drifted back and recovered only to thwart another yellow jersey threat's multiple attempts to bridge. He would surge off the front only to realize he was towing me along for a free ride and was forced to sit up. The remainder of the race was fairly uneventful. I had been recovering from efforts nicely despite not have as strong and deep of a high end as I wanted. No shock given that I had yet to reach that stage of my training! I decided to practice my positioning and sprinting in the field sprint and took 3rd or 4th in the field sprint. Not bad all things considered.
After we rolled around for a cool down lap, I heard that Ira had finished second and the SixCycles threat had not finished in the points. Unfortunately, a Bethel Cycles kid won the sprint and took the yellow jersey. From what I heard, he had a wicked sprint and the quads of Andre Greipel to match. With two weeks remaining in the series, we would have our chance to get the yellow back. Thanks to Ira's strong finish, we did end up with the lead in the team competition so all was not lost. As for me, I was somewhat happy with my race given my fitness and slightly tired legs. Overall, I was most happy with being healthy and racing again. The rest will come in due time.
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