Superweek U25s-day 3

Well first of all, my first post here on this group so I might as well introduce myself: hello everyone, Iam the Dutch guy who joined the U25-squad for this season.

Since Nick took a well-deserved rest day after his 7th place yesterday and Eric B. flatted after 10 miles without receiving help from the neutral support car, it is my turn to entertain you all with a race report.

So Team VRC rode basically as a one man-team today in a 145k (90 mile)road race over a brutal course. Not because of the weather or the elevation, since it was pretty good weather and there were only 1 or 2 short power climbs. But all of the corners and the fact that the riders made the race pretty hard caused it to be a long, but fun day.

The race can be summarized pretty briefly since even though there was a lot of attacking going on nothing really got away. Until halfway during the race when the pack started to really break up. A few smaller groups formed a front group of a good 30 guys and rode away and fortunatly I was able to bridge up to them. After that another 6-8 guys made it, but the rest of the pack was done for the day. A strong group of 6 (containing both the overall race leader and the sprint competition leader) escaped while everyone else was catching their breath and they proved that they really were the strongest in the race because we never saw them again.

The pack(or what was left of it) thinned out even more while the race progressed and ended up having to sprint for the 8th place since a Taiwanese guy sneaked of in the last kilometre. Even though the last few turns were pretty sketchy I ended up 6th in that sprint so 13th overall.

With a 20th, a 17th and a 13th place so far in Superweek Iam slowly moving to the results which really matter so I hope I can keep this upward momentum going the next few days. Furthermore Team VRC has been showing, by clearly riding in the front and influencing the race, that the team is becoming a force to reckon with....even in a race like Superweek. So especially when Eric L. comes in to complete the team here we should be able to continue to make you guys (and girls ofcourse ;-)) proud.

Michael.

P.S. Even though Nick didn't race today he was of so much value by providing me with much needed bottles.... So thanks again for that! Team spirit is what it is all about, and that aspect is definitly ok. Both the girls team and we are helping eachother out a lot in the race and are having a lot of fun outside of the races (which is equally important ofcourse) as well.