Bear Lake Road Race

I had so much fun racing 52 miles around Bear Lake!

I loved all the strategy, watching for moves, waiting for attacks, and the excitement of it all. The attacks started early, but no one really seemed able to get away for very long.



At about eight miles into the race, Shanna started leaning hard into me. She was shouting at someone on her right to back off, and she was telling me to hold on. I could feel my bike slipping out from under me, and I was sure I was going down. I focused on holding my line because I didn't want to get pushed over into the girl on my left. We rode like that for at least 10 seconds. I was strangely okay with it. I remember thinking that it was a good experience for me and I would learn from it. (By the way, this is the second time this year that someone has come so close as to touch me. Both times this has happened that person has won that race! Now, don't get any ideas about me being a good luck charm. I don't like getting bumped in a race!)

After about 12 miles, the attacks stopped, and I settled in mid-pack and just sat in, going easy. Around mile 17, I got impatient and signaled to my teammate, KH, that it was our turn to attack. I sprinted around with KH following. I knew that we had four teammates sitting on the front and thought maybe they would let us go, but I really thought the group would chase. They didn't. We looked back and they were so far back there, I couldn't believe it. Later, I heard that my teammates on the front were holding the pack back, telling them not to chase...and everyone listened! KH and I were in the breakaway for about the next seven miles. I had known better than to break away by myself, and I was glad I had someone to work with me.

We were caught just before the rollers. My team counter-attacked when they caught us, and totally blew the pack to pieces. KH and I were pretty tired from working so hard to stay away, and we weren't expecting the counter-attack, so we missed catching on. But we were able to keep working together to catch and drop several others who were dropped off the back of the pack in front of us. KH started fading on me toward the end of the rollers. I found out that she had forgotten to bring any food, so I was handing stuff off to her, and we were taking it pretty easy for awhile. Pretty soon, we were caught by two other ladies: one teammate and an orange jersey girl. The four of us worked together for several miles before we lost my teammate. We picked up one of Orange Jersey's teammates for a while, but lost her soon after. The three of us worked together for most the rest of the race.

As we got about two miles to the finish, I let Orange Jersey pull. She wasn't about ready to let me back in front of her, and she really started pushing the pace. I looked back and found that we had dropped KH. I focused on holding Orange Jersey's wheel, and focused on nothing else -- no attention-deficit-disorder racing today. As we made the corner to the finish, she was really trying to drop me, but I hung on. I was just about to concede the race to her when I decided that I needed to try to beat her. At the 200m sign, I shifted and pushed hard to try to pass her. Orange Jersey was fighting hard not to let me past, but I managed to barely pull ahead of her at the line! I ended up coming in 11th. It was so much fun!

Congratulations to my teammates, Shanna (1st place), Breanne (2nd), and Jamie (3rd)!