Omnium Report: Stage 2 Road Race

The Omnium Road Race follows the same course as the Boulevard Road Race, big descent followed by a big ascent. A 7:20am start time meant a 5 am wake up call and on the road towards Campo. I grabbed a bottle of that magical elixir - Chocolate Milk from the 7 Eleven and headed east. After puling into the Acorn Casino parking lot, I set the bike up in the trainer with the full intentions of warming up for a good 45 minutes or so. Didn't quite work out that way. Some mechanical work on the derailleurs, a squirt of WD40 on the chain (the experiment is rolling along swimmingly), and went to grab my cycle computer... missing. A frantic search of the car turned up nothing. Crap, oh well, guess I'll be doing this one by feel. My water bottle was empty, and as I started up the hill to the convenience store I noticed that the Cat 5's were already receiving the race briefing. Guest I'll be doing this one without water as well.

So with no warm up, no water, and no computer I started the race. A rider from Nevada got off the first on the first descent - freezing cold. Never saw him go, didn't even hear about it until the climb back up to the start. No one really wanted to chase, so the pace for lap 1 was pretty slow. I stayed to the rear for most of the race, letting everyone else do most of the work. SDBC and Moment Cycle had several riders in the group so they had the burden. I was able to stay with the group - something I've had an issue with on the course - for the first lap. The rider off the front had about 3 minutes on us.

After the climb and through the rollers the pack whittled down to about 15 riders. The second descent was a bit sketchy and I found myself sprinting for a few wheels. The Moment guys were calling out directions (commands?) to the group to maintain rotating pace lines - they were either ignored or unheard. I was just hoping to hold on for a top 15 finish, just something slightly better than last year.

On the second climb I was falling off the back, the group had grown a bit on the descent. The gap to the Nevada rider began to shrink - that's in no small part by his flatting. When we caught him, his teammate made a good dig and began to split the group up. For the rest of the climb to Hwy 80 I dangled off the back.

When we hit Hwy 80 I made sure I was close the front, expecting a big push... it never happened. Instead the group set a steady pace. After telling the riders on the front to either speed up or move over two of the Moment Cycles guys pulled up, side by each, and set pace. After they wore themselves out, two riders slid off the front and then a Swami's rider took off as well. Another 4 riders followed them and left me hanging on to another group of 4, Eric from SDBC, a rider from Jamba Juice, a rider from Descenders, and another unattached. We clawed back the group of 4, with me doing the final pull. Then I sat in and tried to recover. As we moved farther up towards the finish the group seemed to slow somewhat. I put in a big effort up the right side of the group, expecting to pull some of the stronger guys with me.

When I turned around no one was there, leaving me with visions of being caught by the line. I pushed on, catching the Swami's rider and almost the rider after. I had nothing left, but was able to stay away.

4th place in 2:05

4th place in the GC going into Sunday's Crit