I FUCKIN' WON!!!!! WAAAAAA-HOOOOO!!!!!

WOW is it fun to race locally again. As it turns out, getting my ass thrashed for a week at the Cascade Cycling Classic was a good way to build some form. I hardly touched a bike since stage 6, and I wasn't sure if I'd feel good for today's Lake Washington Velo Circuit race (a 60 mile race on a 6 mile, pancake-flat course, with not a single pro in attendance). It turns out I did. I'm not sure if any of you realize this, but after averaging 12 wins for my first two real seasons of racing ("real" meaning ones where I wasn't a cat 5, specifically 2005 and 2006), I was suffering from a bit of a drought; until today, I hadn't won a mass start race in over 2 years-- and no my Tour de Lovell win doesn't count--so I'm fuckin' stoked. Our team rode like a fuckin' team today to set me up, and boy did it pay off. Here's how it went down:

--A break went up the road on the first lap. We had three guys in it, but unfortunately, some of the well known Northwest strongmen were in it. We didn't trust our representation to win the race from that break. As much as we wanted to let our guys in the break have a crack at the win, we thought it would be better to bring it back and start over.

--We sent all our remaining riders to the front. It took us 3 laps of chasing and two butchered bridge attempts, and we blew up a few of our cat 2 guys, but we finally brought those stubborn fools back.

--Once the field was was all together, our team was pretty blown. None of us could respond to attacks very well, so I just sat on the front and set tempo as guys on other teams flung themselves off the front and chased each other down. Once I started seeing my own teammates in the mix, I took a little rest myself.

--Teammate of the race Bing Knight launched a beauty of an attack, and was joined by three others. Bing was a cat 3 earlier this year, but he's so damn good, and he's so damn strong he doesn't seem to realize he's in a different category. He just swings the battle axe in the 1/2's just like he did in the 3's.

--Several other guys bridged across to the move, including myself. Booyeah fools -- I could SMELL it.

--The move rolled pretty smoothly for a the next few laps. We put enough time into the field that it became pretty certain that the winner would come from our move. With a little more than a lap to go, Bing and I decided it was time to have some fun. Bing hit the breakaway hard going into a turn and the breakaway reacted sluggishly at best. If Bing were a house fire, and the breakaway was the fire brigade, he'd have destroyed all your valuables by the time he was extinguished. I countered Bing's move, and nobody went with me. This was a good sign, but I didn't feel like going for the Hail Mary, so I sat up, confident that I could get away closer towards the finish.

--On the final lap, Bing and I attacked the breakaway again but didn't work it quite right, and things were all together again with one K to go. Ian Tubbs attacked with 600 meters to go, and everyone chased him down. I tucked in behind some dude and out sprinted the rest of the breakaway for the win!! WORD!!!

--I didn't know what to do!!! I didn't even think about posting up -- but I sure yelled pretty loud. Here's me, mid yell!! YEEEEE-HAAW!!!!Yeah, I wore a long sleeve skin suit. Yeah, that's a goo packed tucked in my shorts (no pockets in the skin suit after all). Yeah, I sprinted in my 11 -- not a lot of pop, but once I get that thing turning over, watch out! Thanks to Dirk for grabbing the picture (he has lots of other great pictures of me and the other HB guys on his flickr site).

Full props to my team -- they made it happen.