Reily Road Race

I did the OVR Reily Road Race on Sunday. The Cat 3s were doing 7 laps of an 8 mile rolling course. The race was pretty well organized even though it started 45 minutes late. I missed the winning move by being in bad position at the back of the field. I had been riding near the front but let myself drift back just as a group of 7 or 8 moved off the front with almost 30 miles still to race. A second group of 5 or 6, with Corey representing Anthem, then went up the road right after them. I thought Corey's group was going to hook up with the first group but Corey said only a couple of guys would work and they never quite made the connection. (Kudos to Corey for the excellent ride after coming back from a bad accident and a couple of seasons away from racing). As soon as the second group came back to the field, I made a counter attack to try to bridge to the first group. One rider from the One Call team came with me and then Mitch from Torelli made his way up to us with still 25 miles to race. The three of us chased hard for over 10 miles and came close to catching the leaders but just could not finish it off. We continued to work together to at least try to stay out in front of the field. Mitch was a monster, doing more work than the rest of us to stay off the front. We eventually caught another One Call rider who had been dropped by the lead group. The four of us took turns at the front just hoping to hold off the rest of the race. With 6 miles to go, Mitch put in a surge that dropped the One Call guys and nearly broke my legs. The two of us continued on and finished 4 minutes down on the first group but still a minute up on the field. I managed to out sprint Mitch for 7th.