The first 2 or 3 laps of 7 total were pretty tamed. After a big pack split came back together, at the end of lap 3 a break of 15 or so got away. I was fortunate enough to have Corey up in the break. This made my job easy. All I had to do was follow wheels and keep making the front selection up the 2 little climbs. After 4 laps, the break had about 3 minutes up on our chase group of around 18 riders. According to the officials, they were only allowing a 3 minute window before you got pulled. Yeah. Pulled. In a road race.. with 35 miles left in the race. Since I was just sitting on the back of the group getting my free ride, I ended up being scored at 31st. Not even knowing that was going to be our last lap. Since there was still a lot of racing left, no one in our group wanted to bail. We continued our chase for another lap. During the chase, we dropped all but 6 in our group and ended up catching and dropping about 5 guys out of the break. We picked up Corey who fell off the pace of the front break, but was able to hold on to our group. With one lap remaining, Kirk Carlsen was solo of the front still 3 minutes ahead of our group. Clearly he wasn't coming back. The rest of the break however, were only a minute and a half ahead. At this point we had ridden into the top 10 with podium spots still in contention. With a lap still left to race, it was too little too late, and all the chasing we had done was all for nothing. We had already been scored at the end of our previous lap.The worst part of the whole thing is that the race was unfolding exactly like it had last year in Seven Springs. With all but a few guys out of the break being caught. USACycling and whoever said 3 minutes was a large enough window clearly messed up, and at nationals. Good job guys. Oh well I guess, it is what it is.
Corey had the ride of the day, being scored at 13th. Not bad for his first nationals.
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