As well as can be expected

When you have good legs, sometimes you can tell as soon as you get up in the morning. Or as soon as you jump on a bike. On the other side of the coin, I knew I'd have bad legs on Thursday afternoon, even though the race was three days away.

And that's the life of a bike shop guy, especially during a sale. Constant motion on a concrete floor, long gaps of time where it's so busy there's not even time to grab a drink or a quick snack.

I mention these things not as an excuse, but rather as a foreword for how I felt heading into the Twin Bing Classic. Tired, slow and not exactly snappy. That said, I didn't do horribly. I was 17th from a field of 31 Cat. 1/2/3 riders.

It went like this:

The first few miles were pretty chill — I was sixth or seventh over the climb and hit the big ring as soon as it was feasible to avoid getting dumped on the downhill. At one point, EOB and I were on the front riding tempo (really, really slow tempo) before I slid back a bit.

I don't remember exactly when it was, but things hit the fan a few miles later, hard attacks, guttering, surges, more attacks, more sprinting and more guttering. We saw some nice pinball action from a few swervy types in the bunch, which was both terrifying and strangely entertaining.

On the second lap, on the two corners where the headwind/cross-headwind turns into a full-on tailwind, the group splintered. After the surges on the first lap, it was pretty obvious how it was going to go down. With that knowledge, I moved up heading into the corner, but that kind of power just wasn't there. I was probably about 30 feet from closing the gap, but was completely maxed out and heading uphill.

I sat up, regrouped, refocused and started reeling people in. By the time we finished the backside of the course — all rollers, all tailwind — a group of five or six had bridged up to the second chase group, which contained Ryan Feagan, my teammate (who needs to keep his blog updated). After killing myself to get there, I sat in a while. And by a while, I mean about two-thirds of a lap.

When we hit the tailwind section again, I went to the front and just rode tempo, hoping to keep Ryan sheltered a bit before the last time up the long hills. I worked as much as I could, though I wish I could have done more.

Heading into the last three miles, I was mentally preparing to gut myself up that damn hill. I took over when the road really kicked on the first pitch, hoping to deliver Ryan to the base of the second pitch with a bunch of tired dudes behind him. Like Mark, I came up a few feet short on the last incline. I would have liked to have kept the tempo high onto the next part, but as it was, it was pretty much a total shutdown as I pulled off to the side. Ryan almost took the bunch sprint anyway, though.

If there are positives to be found, they sound like this:

• I didn't get dumped on the first hill.
• I didn't get dumped on the cross-wind bits.
• I was able to help a teammate, if only a little bit.
• I was able to regroup after getting dropped, and able to start pulling guys back.
• I felt horrible pretty much the entire time.
  

Notice I didn't mention my back. It hurt throughout the second and third laps, but not in a debilitating way. Last year, it felt like I was doing bad things to it. This year it just felt a little sore. Not bad.

There's still work to do, but considering my preparation, which wasn't really ideal, I'll take it. And now it's time for three more races this next weekend. Ouch.