Finally a race I was completly happy with. Yes, I won. Coming into this race with the CycleYouth/LeRoy's team in 2nd place the whole team was ready to race.
I got a good start and entered the woods first. I was suprised because nobody made a move on the very long double track to the woods. Alafia is close to my house so maybe everyone was wanting follow my line before making a move. Home course advantage does play a role. Anyway, my teammate Adam Cohen made a great pass right before the woods and moved from 4th to 2nd right on my wheel. With Adam there we chased down the 40-49 class to get through them as fast as possible before the first technical sections arrived. There was about 40 of them split into two groups of twenty and we were able to get mixed in with them right as we were entering the technical stuff. We had to run a few climbs but made it through pretty quick. We picked off the rest of the 2nd group of 40-49 right before the next section and was able to really move through Bridges. The next section was about 2 miles long and we were starting to catch the 40-49 lead group. That section is pretty tight but those guys let us pass with very little trouble. Then the last technical section was Roller Coaster. I love this section and was looking forward to Adam and I trying to open up a gap. But one of the 30-39 guys decided he was coming to Alafia to block racers instead of racing. We had on open spot to pass but Mr. Blocker was intentionally moving left and right to keep the rider behind him for moving on. The blocked rider Adam and myself were all yelling at this guy to let us pass but he was determined to not let anyone around him. Even those not in his class. FINALLY the trail opened up enough where we had enough room to shoot past him with out him being able to cut in front of us and we were on our way again. (enough complaints came in about the blocker from multiple classes that he was DQed. We know what jersey he was wearing so we will be better prepared around their riders) The second lap comes and we enter North Creek. We didn't do this trail on the first lap and I can really flow through here. Adam was still on my wheel but he soon faded. I had no idea he wasn't there and just kept hammering. I got held up on another climb but after that it opened up nice and I was able to hold my rythm. Because I wasn't concentrating on riders around me I started to wonder where Colin was. He proved at the last two races how strong of a finisher he is so I knew he was coming fast. All I could do was go hard and hope he wouldn't catch me. Thankfully he didn't!
Home course advantage payed off and the whole team had a great day despite a few mechanicals.
Me -- 1st 15-18
Adam Cohen -- 4th 15-18
Madison McDaniel -- 5th W3
Sam Connell -- 2nd 11-14 (with his 1st sprint finish)
Jordon Karras -- 7th 11-14 (broken spoke)
Ethan Audette -- 5th 11-14
Morgan Connell -- 6th 11-14
Jared Coker -- 15th 11-14
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