Belterra and some things.

Second week back on the bike and my first "real" race back. Solid training, nothing to really write home about. I have been capping my rides at about 3 hrs and picking up the tempo a little bit. I still don't want to over do it just yet. I jumped in the Tuesday night ride out south of town, which is always fast. Since Ft. Davis is just around the corner, I have been getting out on my Scott Plasma time trial bike a couple of times a week. It feels fast, and even if I don't set a course record, at least I'll look kinda cool with our Advantage helmets thanks to Giro and our Zipp wheels flying down the road. I'm pumped. Right now I think Tristan will be the GC guy out there. He is riding super strong, and is a good pure climber to have on your team. I also did the Thursday night driveway crit last week. After watching Don, the boss, destroy his "c" race companions in his second ever USCF race. I was just thinking, I can't disappoint. When in reality, I was going to be very happy just to hang in and cover stuff. Mission accomplished. Barry and Carlos got into a break that ended up lapping the field. Every time I looked across the course to the break, Barry would be at the front turning his giant 54t chain ring in anger.

Once the break lapped our main field, I sat up and pulled out and witnessed Barry out sprint John Korioth and Stefan to keep the KOD jersey in the TX Tough family. Hopefully he wont lose it between now and Thursday in his truck or bedroom. We'll see.

The legs have been getting a lot better. Still not much fitness to be seen out of me. Just kinda "going through the motions", as Christian always tells me.

Belterra was kinda cool. Not nearly as challenging of a course that they have had in years past, but still fun. With the fast downhill toward the finish, a break staying away was going to be next to impossible. We all did a good job of covering moves and getting in all the breaks. Tristan got in a move halfway through the race with Stefan and Willis that looked threatening. However, after Willis had a mechanical issue on the hill, the 2 remaining were just cruising waiting for the group to catch them. On the last lap, Stefan launched yet another ferocious  attack on the hill and no one followed him. Like I said, an end result in anything other than a field sprint was unlikely, but if anyone were going to change that, it were going to be him. Stefan is not a sprinter and will never take his chance in a field sprint. I saw him up the road, and stomped on the pedals to get across to him at the top of the climb. Keep in mind that my fitness level is rather low, so you can imagine once I latched onto his wheel, I was cashed. We soon got caught and just jumped back into the pack. A few other small attacks from people who aren't sprinters tried their chances, but nothing doing. I tried to back to the front on the downhill to help out Barry with the lead out, but again, not happening. Barry set up the train nicely with Carlos and Tyler on his wheel. Somewhere between the downhill and finish, a certain SuperSquadra rider boss hogs his way into Tyler, trying to shut down the lead out. With about 150 meters to go Tyler takes over the sprint, which 9 times out of 10 are wins for him. On this occasion, (which is also his first race back as well since his crash nearly a month ago), the SuperSquadra rider had his way with him. Pushing him over into the curb, forcing T. Jewell to stop pedaling all together. Squadra took the win, then Boyd (who is riding like a bad ass), and Rob Kane had a surprise 3rd place. I was impressed with that result out of him. He is kinda old. :)

Tyler had to settle for 4th after an arguably sheisty sprint. All you can do is learn from your mistakes though. Maybe next time he'll throw some bows and be a bit more aggressive. Carlos and Will got 5th and 6th, and I limped in with the pack feeling like a small child. 

More steady training and Mineral Wells next weekend. Good race, and good preparation for Ft. Davis. Hopefully Stefan won't have his way with me again this year. Although, 2nd to him is usually not too shabby.

On another note, Bryan Fawley represented TX Tough at the NORBA National in Fontana California. You have to hear the story from him, but long story short. A disappointing cross country, nicely rebounded with a 19th in the pro short track. He'll take that all day.