Home Weekend

We had so many people racing this weekend that there are way too many stories to tell them all.  Here are some of the top ten finishes:

MSU Road Race:
3rd - Marleigh in B's
3rd - Jared in D's
5th - John in B's
5th - Colin in C's
7th - Clay in C's
10th - Andrew in C's

Home Crit:
4th - Patrick in D's
5th - Jane in B's
5th - John in B's
5th - Andrew in C's
10th - Jared in D's

I have no idea how Eric survived without more clothing on his legs.

As I said there's way too much to say about this weekend, but here's a little taste (stay tuned, we'll have more from Marleigh later and possibly others if anyone wants to write something):
--Adam

This is only half the group that raced on Saturday.

John’s RR:

The road race started pretty casually, as everyone in the group was probably thinking of the dirt ahead, as they should be. The first right turn into dirt portion was a mess, and took many (myself included) by surprise. The pace throughout the first lap stayed pretty casual, but it was pretty apparent that the dirt sections were awesome (read: AWFUL).

Hani is ready for the awesome.

The second lap I was just day dreaming about how Belgium-esque the whole experience was, so unsurprisingly didn’t notice when the three man break got away. We spent the next three laps chasing pretty poorly, and after being yelled at by numerous Notre Dame riders, I just wanted to quit.

Colin and Clay broke the C field apart.

That almost happened during the beginning of the last lap due to some particularly sketchy riding from yours truly as a rider came across the front of the pack to tap my front wheel. I was struggling to open a Honey Stinger waffle at the time, and immediately unclipped both pedals upon getting tapped and was immediately dropped.

John rolls through the finish at the front.

Taking my sweet time to recover my precious food from the ground, I went harder than I like to catch back on. Fast forward to the finish, I went from second rider around the last turn to dead last hoping the whole pack would blow up too early, luckily they did, and I was able to glide past Tommy Peng for 5th overall.

In this photo Adam is off the back and begging Joey to pull him back to the field.

Crit:

After the road race I was just starting the crit looking for some easy primes. I wasn’t sure If I’d be able to stay on for the whole ~55 minutes after the dirt road race so I quickly put in small efforts to get a 3rd, and 2nd in the first two bell laps.

Jared sprints while an MSU guy rides off into the grass.  In the distance you can see someone getting up from a crash.

A combination of “THIS IS ANN ARBOR!” and my mom watching from the side motivated me to actually ride on the front and do some pedalin.

"THIS IS ANN ARBOR!"

And sure enough after said pull, there was a four man breakaway that I didn’t even notice.

Sounds like someone needs to spend more time looking up the road. (If you're wondering, John beat Al and Ben)

Going against everything I believe in, I started pulling again to catch them, but alas no dice, they were gone. After some more bickering with Notre Dame riders (I’ll admit, I’m a hothead) we started the last lap pretty fast. As the two Notre dame riders started upping the pace with a quarter lap to go, I attacked on the outside and was able to gap the pack enough to calmly coast through the finish for 5th overall again.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the race.

--John