You know how sometimes when you are undecided about doing something your expectations aren’t very high. So, it’s nearly impossible to not surpass them. And it removes some of the nervous early season pressure. That is how Saturday went in Oklahoma.

I wasn’t really planning on racing on Saturday, but got a call from Adam and ended up driving down to Tusla for a 90 minute circuit race. I’d done the race last year and was it was a field sprint. I was 2nd to Brice Jones.

This year went better. I got away early with Matt Ankeny (Mercy) and Jay Blankenship (Tulsa) super early. We rode together for nearly the whole race. I was hoping for Adam or Bill to bridge up, but we ended up getting way too far off the front. I was feeling great. I was having a hard time holding in my energy. Finally, with 10 miles to go, Matt attacked and shelled Jay. I didn’t feel comfortable starting the fireworks, but had no problem continuing them. I immediately attacked Matt and soloed in for a comfortable win. Adam and Bill came after splitting the next group. They finished 4th and 6th respectively. I can’t complain much about my form. It is nice racing early season races and not experience much pain.

Picture below is Bill attacking with 1.5 miles to go as I finish.  Kind of weird.

I was planning on just training Sunday, but felt so good yesterday I decided to do the local Perry Road race. If we ride out to the course, race and ride home, it’s an easy 80 miles. It wasn’t so warm, only in the 40’s, but the wind was light. The course has a km climb up to the finish every 5 miles, so it is challenging. The 1-2 riders were grouped with the 3’s, so there was a OK sized field riding around.

My team had 5 guys there. Bill Stolte had won the race last week, so was leading. I thought it was best just to race and not try to stack the results. It sometimes gets a little stupid around here when we do that. Anyway, my brother, Kris, took off from the gun with the new junior on our team, Joe Schmaltz. They quickly disappeared up the rode. Towards the end of the first lap, I flatted. There was no wheel van of course. I thought I’d just go to the finish line and wait a lap and ride the rest for training. Trudi was there with her bike and I took her 9 speed rear wheel. I was a couple minutes back. I decided to chase. Thought I felt so good that it wouldn’t be that big a deal to catch back on. Little did I know. Little did I know the rest my team, Bill, Shad, and Adam were up the road in a 5 rider group rotating. I went pretty good for about 1/2 a lap. OK for another 1/2 lap and rode badly the last chase lap. Thankfully, Bill looked back when I was about 20 seconds back and just about done. It took a little over 10 miles to get back to the front.

It amazing how much different I felt Sunday most of the race. It took me nearly a lap (5 miles) to recover from the effort. It was actually depressing somewhat. So much for not stacking the results. The final group was the 5 of us (HRRC/Trek Stores) and my brother Kris. 3 of us hadn’t done last weeks race, so we weren’t in the overall points. So, junior, Joe Schmaltz won his first race riding on our team. Bill was 2nd. So on. It was good training. Physically. Mentally it was a bit annoying.

HRRC  TTT.  I look pretty happy, huh?