Oxford Road Race and a WIN!!

Written by Kerry Werner

I would like to start off by saying the course was very nice. It was rolling with three bigger climbs in it and some decent descents. My only complaint was the road work on the course. It took one of my team mates out of the race and that stinks because it really was a good race. We did 5 laps by the way. Now the race, BOM BOM BOM!

The first thing I noticed was there was only 21 people in the 3/4 race. I wasn’t particularly happy about that. I like a field that’s around 40-50. But I shook it off and put the game face on. The race started out slow. The first thing that happened was Manny got a flat on the first lap when he went over the first section of the course that was under construction (he chased but the wheel van took too much time for the wheel change). Everything remained chill until a cadence kid broke solo on the second lap. He worked up a min plus lead then we decided to do work. NCVC lead the work force followed by Copi (Me and an NCVC and a kelly’s guy tried to break on a little roller but kelly’s sat up and didn’t want to do any work). I sat in and did work when I had to. We reeled him in by the first hill on the third lap. Then things slowed down again. Then the rain came….

There was two to go at this point and I knew the race wasn’t going to stick together. On the first hill of the second to last lap NCVC, another junior (team unknown), and me got a gap on the field and decided to stick it. By the time we got to the lap line we already had a min plus. We knew we were staying away. So we rode tempo the whole last lap, no one tried anything tricky until the finish stretch…

Up the last hill I wanted to go into the final stretch two back from the leader. So I lead out the group from the last hill to the left turn off then pulled off and they pulled through. I knew there was going to be some stupid stuff going down and I wanted to watch it all from the back. Sure enough when I got on the back the three of us slowed up about 5-10 miles an hour and started to play head games. The NCVC got itchy and broke. I let the junior jump on his wheel, and then I jumped on his. NCVC slowed then again and tried to get the junior to pull through. He wasn’t budging. NCVC broke again and sat up but this time the junior pulled through. Everyone sat up and basically came to a coast. We then saw the 1k to go mark and raised the tempo a little bit. I knew someone would get itchy around the 300-200m mark and sure enough from the back NCVC broke and the junior jumped on I jumped on his wheel. Then 200-150m mark the junior broke left off of NCVC’s wheel so I broke right. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen because at first we were both even on the sprint. Then I noticed he was fading so I upped the sprint and put it all out. The line grew closer and closer and I looked back under my arm and knew I had the sprint. I crossed the line, threw the arms up, and then congratulated the other two guys on a good race.

Thanks goes to Manny for making it to the race and the only one from the team able to make it. Also, thanks to Manny for not asking for my wheel when he flatted. Hahahah. Thanks to Rich for the gnar gnar race, and my mammy for bringing me (she’s a balla).

More pictures coming soon!