burnin' matches.

[photo by fyre].

"burning matches and ballin' outta control", was the quote from one local news media outlet regarding the grumpy's/lgr weekend exploits in duluth minnesota.


i suppose i can't agrue with that. luckily, the lgr team brought a whole box of matches to burn and we used them wisely.

to say we had a plan is an understatement. we had strategy to spare, and we excecuted our plans like we were russian spies in the 80's.

ok, let me recap, without the hype.

we had a hunch we might be defending the jersey after the tt, and i think we did the appropiate thing; we raced like we meant it.

we tried our best to accept the responsibility of the jersey and run the south range race.
we did a ton of work. the race was not too likely to break apart on that course, but i think we did the right thing and set tempo and covered moves all day.
it paid off as we held the jersey into stage 3.

stage 3 was a brutal one. i was pissed that the cassette only went to 23. i would've loved a 25.
on climb #3 i had a mechanical.
trouble.

on support was right there and literally saved my race and my weekend. (thankyouthankyouthankyou!)
then i chased for almost a whole lap, and got back on with a mile or 2 to rest until the climb came around again.
we had to team up with brone's with 3 guys each to bring back schuller on lap 4. bwood also lent a guy.
schuller is that much of a beast.
once he was in sight we pulled back- we were happy with him taking the win. brone's (in 2nd on gc) was still not pleased though and closed the gap.
oh well. i was happy to be done.

most importantly, we kept matt in the pack and thwarted the break, and therefore retained the lead again- but the gaps were diminishing.

going into cloquet's crit we had 29secs on "the canadian", 37secs on brone's, and just over a minute on 2 bwoods. lurkers.

with time bonus primes and time on the finish line, it was a stressful race for lgr.

the plan was as simple as we could make it (you know, so we could actually remember it during the crit):
- stuff the canadian and brone's in the 2 time bonus primes. (a non-dangerous break would be ideal).
- ride for a bunch finish.

part one worked great and no one gained any time one us.
part two was not as smooth...

one of the bwood gc lurkers snuck off up the road. we fully expected brone's to do more to chase but they never really did. bwood held off for the win, and the field blew apart on the final lap, but the rest of the gc contenders finshed in a front bunch with matt tucked safely in. sweet.

bwoods gap was very threating for awhile (i heard 50 sec?), but was brought down to a much more reasonable 25sec or so at the finish.

stellar.

jake had a rough weekend in the 4's defending all by his lonesome. he was more than up to the task and was able to hang with most of the important moves. his race got as tight a 7secs going into the crit.
talk about pressure.
he pulled it out though to round off and overall fantastic weekend of dynamic racing. (some of the best i have been a part of).

i am so proud of lgr. we really nailed this one.

track team my ass.

:)