Conference Championships

First, Conference Championships
Last weekend was the final NWCCC race of the season.  It's always the same set of courses, and they're always brutal.  The road race started out fairly calm heading out of Palouse.  A couple of riders rolled off early in   a slow motion attack and somehow got up the road a ways.  Then I saw Nate from UM bridging up.  I was in a break with Nate both days last weekend, so I decided to go after him in hopes that things would turn out just like last weekend.  So I soloed away to the three riders up the road.  I got within about 15 seconds of them, came around a corner and was staring straight into a steep power roller.  I'd forgotten about that.  I powered over it and caught Nate and Jordan (UW) as we crested the hill.  The guy from WWU took off over the top and was gone.  So the three of us bombed down the decent and just as we started working again, I heard wheels whizzing by.  That was a waste of a good 5 minute effort.  I sat in the pack for the rest of the lap, then things took a bad turn.  The end of the lap is a gnarly downhill into Palouse, where I found myself shuffled to the back of the pack.  That wouldn't be a big deal if the start of lap 2 wasn't a long gradual hill.  The guys on the front started drilling it up the climb, and gaps started forming ahead of me.  I wasn't feeling that bad, but I just couldn't close it down to the pack.  I spent about half a lap chasing from about 100 yards behind the wheel car.  I hate getting dropped, but I really hate having to watch the race unfold ahead of me just out of reach.  Eventually, the race got up the road, and I got caught by the B's.  I hung on to the back of them for the rest of the race.  We caught a couple of A riders who weren't very happy to see me relaxing on the back of the pack, but since the official was right behind me for the entire race and they could have done the exact same thing, I don't feel too bad about it.

The team time trial was up next.  It was a flat out and back.  Our D team was first up.  They came back from  just as we were heading out.  Since, as usual, our A team featured Beth and a D rider (Mark this week), I had planned on just having a nice easy ride.  Then Chris announced their time to us and I couldn't let that go.  So I went hard enough to make the other two hurt a little while I stayed in the small ring.  We ended up beating our D team by 21 seconds and only 2:04 off the 6th place A team, which is a significant improvement.

The crit on the UI campus is probably my favorite collegiate race of the year.  There's a crazy downhill corner, then a gradual climb back up to the finish line.  It's all the fun of decending and going really fast through a corner with most of the pain of climbing back up eliminated.  For the first few laps at least.  Then I started noticing the slight inclines a lot more.  It was the fastest race of the season.  I tried to bridge up to Steve Fisher about 20 minutes into the race.  Once I started getting close, the field picked up the pace and shut it down.  We both got caught, Steve just managed to get away again for the W.  I tried another move with a couple of guys who both randomly sat up as I pulled through.  That was weird.  After that I stayed in the field and sprinted for 8th place.  I finished the regular season in 10th place and will be attending Nationals in a couple of weeks.

Now, Random Coolness
First off, I have to plug the movie that BSU Cycling is showing.  It's called The Anthem, and it's going to be the greatest night of bike-movie-mayhem ever.  Boise Fry Company is hosting the pre-party where we're raffling off a bunch of really cool stuff (Pivlocks, anyone?).  That starts at 5:30 next Monday.  After we get all full o' fries, we'll head over to the Special Events Center for the movie.  That starts at 7:00 for those of you who want to see the movie, but don't like to party (or whatever perfectly valid excuse you might have).

Next, we have new kits!  Look at them!

Photo by: Catherine Cooper

Photo by: Chandler Abraham

The last cool thing I have to post about is Bill and Joan Wykoff.  They're extra-strength cool, and are retiring from their post as Conference Directors.  USA Cycling is going to miss them, but Miles will do a great job in their place.