Woo-hoo! Why did I wait so long to discover road biking? First skinny tire races ever - BRC Crit in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Seemed to be a well run event. I certainly had a great time. I might turn my attention towards road racing next summer - currently shopping local teams. The focus this summer was on IM.

I saw some manly efforts today. Really impressive stuff. Watched a pack of four get away on the first lap of the 2's race and hold until the end. One dude solo bridged a ~1 minute gap about 50 minutes into the race. Stud.

4's - 12th place out of about 40 or so. Missed a prime by about 10 feet. Spent maybe 75% of the race between the 5th and 15th position. The surge after the downhill corner spiked to ~850 watts on each lap (19 one mile laps). The field strung out hard on the last lap with about 90 seconds to go. I had to put down around 450 watts just to stay in the draft. It didn't look like anyone was passing through this stretch but I couldn't really see. I had hoped to sprint as the finish line approached but nothing shaped up. Never really found the pain cave. 25.6 mph.

4's/35+ - mid/back of the pack. Legs were creaky at the start, felt good in the middle, then creaked badly at the end. Got worked over on the last half mile losing about 30 places. No pop left at that point in the day. Would have loved to have finished this race with fresh legs. 24.5 mph.

Watched a VERY close call on the wheel in front of me. A guy was skirting around the peloton a few mph faster than the pack. The guy in front of me decided he was going to do the same thing but didn't look first. He ended up tangling badly with the passer. The guy should have gone down. I would have been the next person to hit the pavement. Maybe 20 people were in line to get tangled in the malay that would have ensued. My heart skipped a beat to say the least.

Watched another close call in the closing laps. The 2nd place rider nearly went down in the last corner somewhere around 30 mph. Looked like he rolled a tubie off the rim. I have no idea how nobody went down, not even him. It happened right in the apex with the whole field hard charging behind.