~85 mi, consisting of a local metric century and the ride to+from.
Ride was the 'Tour of Trinidad' here in Humboldt County, CA. The ride wasn't categorized and simply split into 20,40 and 100-k events.

I dropped my chain right near the bottom of the first big roller and had to dismount and manually re-install it. Needless to say, I was off the back instantly.

By the top of the first climb I had caught up to all but the top 4 who were in a decent breakaway.
At the bottom of the decent I slowed slightly and waited for two others to show up and suggested we form a chase group.

The other two turned out being too slow, so I dropped them on the next climb and went out solo. I was familar with all of the riders in the break and decided we were going too slow.

This point was still with about 40 mi. to go, and I knew that not me or anyone was going to catch them, so I made a new goal of not letting myself get caught and staying between the break and the rest of the riders working together.

THe plan worked and I ended up getting second because three riders in the group accidentily took a wrong turn and got disqualified. When I finished, the 4 riders in the break had been sitting for almost 20 min. The pack finish behind me took 5 min to come in after I did. My time was three hours, five min.




So second or fifth place I still felt accomplished and strong for riding solo all those miles. The anger from dropping my chain provided me with alot of determination.