I got there at about 8' with the race starting at 9:30, so I had plenty of time to warm up. I got lined up a bit late (nature's call) and was stuck towards the back (my bad =/). I found a solid rider to take me back up to the front (he was in the same position I was i.e.farther back than he should be), I caught on to his wheel at the start of the first climb (similar to a cat 4, one guy said), and we blew through the field ~14mph, by now I was sitting in the middle of the pack towards the front.
The pack is cruising at ~25mph at the top of the first climb, then out of nowhere I hear a crash (you know that sound, a mix of sliding tires and banging metal), it was up ahead of me about 50 ft., from what I saw, the guy must have gotten pinched and hit someone's wheel. Needless to say, he went down HARD, into the ditch, luckily later I found out all he had was some nasty road rash. Anyway's, I slammed on both my brakes along with everyone else, and prayed that everyone else saw the crash behind me, I started to fishtail but kept my bike under control and clipped back in.
Problem was, the riders in front of the crash kept on going, us folk behind the crash were screwed. I grab on to a guy's wheel and try to pound back to the lead group. After around a mile of chasing I'm all on my own, and the field was steadily pulling away. I knew better than to keep chasing, so I waited up for 2 riders behind me and formed a paceline with them. Along the way we pick up about 5 more guys, some dropped from the lead group, and some coming from the back of the now sparse field.
From there on it was a fairly normal race with a pace of 20-27 mph, with about 10 miles left two guys from our group try a break, I pulled for a bit and caught one of the riders and then handed my pull over and we caught the next guy fairly easily. Before I know it I look up, and see a group of spectators about a half mile ahead and I ask the guy next to me (who I noticed had a full cf colnago with full record, meh, nice bike), "Is that the finish line?" :-) He told me it was, and then I waited for the right moment to sprint. I was about 2 riders back from the lead and one guy had already started his sprint long ago, I took off and sprinted to the line (man, it's the best feeling in the world when you cross that line) I took third in our group's sprint of 7 people, 29th overall (out of 81 riders), 1st in my age group (14-19yrs), by 12 min.
Warming up...
The peloton at the start...
Me with my medal...
