Cannon Falls road race is a 55 mile loop out in the country. You turn onto a 1 km gravel section and then a screaming descent into Cannon Falls. From there you proceed to do 6 laps of a 2 mile circuit with lots of tight corners. The finish is up a slight hill for the last 300 meters. Pretty hard sprint. Historically there has be a ton of wind on the course. Not today. It was pretty calm and around 75 degrees. Good racing temperatures. That being said, it was destined to be a field sprint. Which it was. Nothing much got away. There was a little bike racing the last 5 miles before the gravel. Alot of the time we were just cruising along at over 35 mph. Nothing much is going to stay away at those speeds. I made a pretty good move and hit the gravel in 2nd position. Tim Johnson and another Ouch guy were 3rd and 4th. I punched it over the top and tucked on the rough descent. At the bottom, there is a sharp off camber 90 degree corner. I came up on the motorcycle official like he was standing still. He gunned it, but nearly knocked me down in the corner. I only had a 100 meters or so and sat up. The circuits were chaotic as usually. Lots of people trying to control the front and everyone else trying to move up. The last lap, I was in pretty good position considering the mayheim. I got up to somewhere in the top 20 in the last km. I made a pretty good move to the final downhill, but got taken out wide in the last real corner. That was enough to put me out into the wind sprinting to reconnect to the front of the field with 300 meteres to go. I was hoping it was going to ease up some, but it didn’t. I made a half hearted attempt to sprint and bagged it with 100 meters to go. But, the remainder of the field was so blown that no one passed me even though I was barely pedaling. I finished 16th. Whatever. Colivita was 1-2 on the stage. They have the leadout situation down to perfection. The speed is so fast the last km, that it’s nearly impossible to move up. Tommorow is another night time criterium in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. It should be pretty exciting. A awesome crowd will be there. Then the racing really begins with Mankato Road Race and Stillwater Criterium on the weekend. It should be pretty interesting seeing whether Ouch or Bissell comes out on top. Each of those teams has at least 3 guys in the top ten. I’d put my money on Ouch, but you never know. It’s bike racing.

We’re stay at host housing here at Nature Valley. I’m usually pretty adamant against that. Too many times there is a sick kid or something and the whole team ends up sick for the next two weeks. But, the few times it works out, it works out great. This is one of those times. We’re staying in Woodbury, a suburb Southeast of St. Paul. Super for riding. We’re staying with Bob McEnaney and his family. It is so comfortable. They haven’t had to go out of their way to make it that way. That is just the way they live. Their house is exactly like a house should be. Clean, but lived in. Really lived in. Sports equipment everywhere. A gym downstairs. Interesting projects in all different stages of completion. A household. Their yard is like a scuptured garden. A million different varieties of plants. Pool. Running brook. They are on the go all day. Ben Raby, guest rider, said it perfectly. Bob did more yesterday morning than Ben does in a week in Boulder. It’s true for me also. Yesterday they got up and exercised for a hours at 5:30 am. He went to the store and got a boat load of groceries. He went out and rode his bike for a couple hours. Vacuumed the house. And then mowed the lawn. All before noon. And I left out about 50 other things. It’s like watching the energizer bunny. He repeated it in the afternoon and then drove down to Cannon Falls for the finish of the race. As a cyclist, that is mind boggling. Bob took us to a killer bar after the race in some small town in between Cannon Falls and St. Paul. It was famous for their burgers. I don’t usually eat too much of that stuff, but the life experience is worth the trade off. If there is a trade off. Anyway, they did have 50 types of burgers. Everything you can imagine on a burger plus some. Nick Coil got one with peanut butter and mayo. Nick loves peanut butter. I couldn’t of stomached it, but he said it was great. I got a fried egg and blue cheese. Thought a little extra protein was in order. And the beer on tap was cold and plentiful. I think I’m going to have to change my mindset on the host housing thing. These life experiences make the suffering on the bike much easier to justify.

Peanut Butter burger.

Bob getting the stream flowing.

Weird mushroom where we parked in Cannon Falls.