Edging Closer To The Pointy End.

Once again I equaled my best placed finish on the CO race circuit with a 5th at the Hart Criterium today. Another 5th, same result as last weeks Boulder-Roubaix. Things are good. I'm either pinning it on my new haircut or the fact I got my favourite number 14 as my race number as the cause some single digit results. So ten minutes before the start the skies were looking black down south and all of a sudden a nice tornado spout was spotted. For real. It looked like it extended down to the ground for a short period of time, but after a little delay and a few extra practice laps we were on our way. Course was fun and much to my liking, a decent length climb each lap and some smooth industrial circuit roads. The first few laps I was in struggle town. The winds were up and I was a little to far near the caboose of the train. Not good. With a solid RMCEF showing the plan was to represent in any break. With the T-Man back from a little flier I saw an opening to shoot up the road with VC's Tarkinton after ex Toyota-United rider Barbari countered and was fast disappearing up the frog and toad. Next thing I knew we were away!

Break time. One lap later we were joined by some welcomed pro firepower, namely Toyota's Kiwi Heath Blackgrove and the Mayor of Boulder himself Chuck Coyle of Successful Living. So only 20mins into the race we had some work to do in order to keep this little flame alive, and as expected the nose was put to the grindstone...big time. Needless to say Heath and Chuck were driving the break with some massive pulls as expected. All of a sudden we were looking the goods. With under 10 laps to go and a solid gap on the bunch the screws were being turned each lap. The legs were starting to crack with 5 to go, and when Heath laid the smackdown over the crest of the hill the group split, leaving Coyle, Tarkinton and myself behind. The tank started to run dry with a lap to go and I was running on fumes and being stuck with a known sprinter in Coyle was not a good place to be so I gave it a little dig on the climb on the last lap to get away but I was already a cooked goose.

Needless to say the sprint was a non-event for me being seriously out gunned by around 20kg of muscle power, but at the end of the day it was another solid result on the scoreboard.

UPS did finally come through with the goods, and turned me into a green eyed monster when I built up Kat's new Salsa CX bike. Apart from the hideous bar tape it's one sweet little rig and just a little too small for me!

Spotted some trout in Bear Creek on a bike path bonanza day. No rod and reel in the jersey pocket however.

Enough said.

Thanks for reading folks....over n' out...cw