The team killing it on the front and making my day easy.   Smashing the tt and staying composed.  Justin England commentary and some video from the crit. And video from yesterdays road race.  Drank a local brew last night, hopefully some of this will be in order tonight!

Thirteen seconds up and one day of racing left up at Cascade.  Came second to Louder today on the mountain top finish, Baldwin was nipping at my heels in third.  Tomorrow isn’t going to be so easy, five challenging circuits with 4 sprints along the way worth 15, 10, and 5 seconds.  I think that the team is riding super strong right now and is going to be up for the task of defending the jersey for one more day.  Just need to outkick Baldwin for the time bonus…

Three stages into Cascade now and managed to move into the lead this morning.  Came close in the first two stages, was outkicked at the finish of stage one and botched the finish of stage two by going too early.  Narrowly beat my teammate Ben Day in the tt but was able to put 30 seconds into Chris Baldwin.  Very excited.  The tt was challenging, 7.5 miles out a gradual drag on rough pavement then U turn and fly back to the finish.  Rolled the 57×19 and 21 most of the way out then just stayed on top of the 57×11 and 12 on the way back.  Think I should have 13 seconds or so on Baldwin now, I’m sure that Chris and everyone else is going to be on the attack tonight.  90 minute technical twilight criterium in downtown Bend.  I think that the team is up to the task and should be able to get through this evening.

Having a few cruisey days as a bit of a midseason break.  Things went well in Minnesota at Nature Valley, gave it a go in a long breakaway, had a decent tt, and put in some good digs on the hard finishing circuits of the final two days. Ended up finishing 4th overall, 1 second off the podium.  Pretty happy with that result considering it is a flat race decided primarily on time bonuses.  Resting up in Boulder now, putting in some long rides on the Monster and catching up with old friends. Cascade is up next, hoping that it is going to be a good one.

Last week was….fun. A stressful, aggressive race to be sure but when the legs are feeling good and the team is strong then bike racing is much more fun. Had fun contesting the bunch sprint on the first road stage, downhill run that was all about position into the final 200m. I tried coming around Ben Jacques-Mayne but I had the 53×11 spun out for all I was worth. It appears that I stick my elbows out when I am at max cadence. Huh. Put in a smoking tt, finally am feeling super with my position and really took advantage of a course that suited me. Came out of the start of the tt at max effort, cracked a bit in the last few km but really feel like I put everything I had into the pedals. I also rode the double all carbon trispokes in the tt. Super fast and light combo, I’m definitely digging on those wheels. Came second in the  30 km TT, just behind TT specialist Nathan O’Neill. Sitting 5 seconds behind O’Neill on GC, I attacked and attacked over the next two days but wasn’t able to get away from Nathan and the Health Net boys. Well done to them for riding a super strong race. Very happy with how the Navigator boys fared as well, 2 stage wins and teams GC.
Feeling quite smashed at the moment but am hoping to recover from Hood and build on the form a bit for my next race-Nature Valley Grand Prix.