Originally Posted by mattm

San Ardo RR p/1/2 - 92 miles. 4th.

Worse than I thought I'd do from looking at pre-reg, but better than I thought I'd do after seeing who actually showed up. Bunch of Socal guys including a KHS domestic pro.

I've never done this race before, but this year given the chase for BAR points (I'm 2nd overall) and Cal Cup points (5th) I figured why not. It sucked getting up so early to drive two hours but it ended up being worth it.

The course is in the central valley farm land, rolling with some small kickers, lots of wind. Main guy I was watching was Cory L from KHS/Elevate - you might have seen him on TV at the Tour of Utah recently. Plus he won this race last year.

An early break of four went on the first of four laps - with guys I wasn't too worried about. One dropped out, one flatted out, another dropped out, one held it ftw. (said he held just over 300w for the duration! and he weighed about as much as me, it looked like)

At the start of the final lap we had the break in our sights, maybe 30 seconds up the road. One guy sat up, the other kept going. I figured he wouldn't be able to hold it solo. But he did.

The field of ~25 chasers was whittled down to about 15 at the end. We chased, but not in a super-organized way. Cory attacked a few times, but I was always on his wheel when he did. I attacked a few times, but everyone was on my wheel. There was a lot of yelling, cajoling, etc, by some to get guys to chase more, but towards the end I figured I was willing to take the risk of the solo guy staying away, and just wanted to save energy so I sat in. I mean if I'm solo out there, what else am I gonna do? That said I did more work than a bunch of guys in our group.

The finish is a confusing one; you do half of the little climb, then take a left that you only do for the finish, just after a left that goes on to the freeway (101). They had signs and told us about this before the race, but four hours later it was easy to forget. So we're ramping up for the final left turn, I'm feeling good, wondering why we're not going harder, and one guy took the early left on to the freeway on-ramp! Luckily not on top of me but right in front of me, and a few guys almost followed him.

Soon after we take the correct left for the ~200m sprint for the line, and I'd lost a few positions but came around Cory for 3rd in the field sprint, 4th overall. Not bad for an fat old crit guy!

As a bonus, I was first out of the Norcal riders, so I should get max BAR point and move in to 1st overall, or close to it!