U23 Road Nationals

I spent the last week or so in Bend, OR at U23 nationals, and I'm now recovering from the long drive back yesterday. Bend, OR is a great town, probably one of the most bike friendly places I've ever ridden. The racing was a heck of an experience, starting off with the TT on Thursday. The course had two legs, the first was an out and back on a gradual climb, and the second was a lollipop loop with rolling hills that they had used for the junior road race. Time trialing has never been a strength of mine, but in the last week or so I've particularly struggled on the 35k+ courses, first at the Colorado State Championships, then at U23 nationals. I did the TT at nationals to give myself and my nerves something else to focus on than the crit at the end of the week, but I really struggled to find a good pace to maintain for the full length of the course.
Friday was the crit, which was the race I was there for, and the field was stacked because they had decided to throw the U23 women in with the elites. Vera Bradley, Peanut Butter & Co Twenty12, and Laura Van Gilder were a small fraction of the teams and riders that made the field the most powerful I've ever lined up with. Unfortunately, with 70 girls getting through the corners was a brake-and-sprint affair, which eventually wore me down, I got dropped, and then pulled a few laps later. In a sense I wish we had gotten our own race, because everything was dominated by elite team tactics which made the race quite a bit different than it would have been with only U23 women, but the experience was definitely worth while.

Wet weekend

We've had an uncharacterically wet few days in the Grand Valley; it kept drizzling on and off all weekend which just doesn't happen here. Not a welcome surprise for the folks that came to Grand Junction for Ride the Rockies, or those that went to Glenwood Springs for the Rocky Mountain Omnium. Though I didn't join them, my Colorado Bike Law teammates had a very successful weekend, despite the crit being cancelled entirely and the road race being shortened. The results for these last few stage races have been slow to come out and highly protested when they do, so I'm not going to try to list them here. This weekend we'll be back to a one day format and I'll try to give more details.

Back at it

It's been a fun, exciting season so far. Here's a quick summary:

I'm racing for Colorado Bike Law and we had our spring training camp in Grand Junction, which turned out to be lucky for the Front Rangers that came over because it was snowing on the other side of the mountains.

I raced another collegiate road season for Mesa State. We capped off an already successful season with a strong performance at nationals in Madison, WI. Richard Geng brought home national titles in the criterium and individual omnium and our men's team won the team time trial to help earn a 2nd place in the team omnium competition.

This past weekend I made a trip up to Aspen for their annual criterium. It was a small but strong Women's Open field and I came in second in the photofinish field sprint to Jessica Phillips, the elite TT national champion.

For Memorial day weekend, I'll be joining my teammates in Superior, Co for the Superior Morgul Classic Omnium.