Ben Albracht
GnarLube/Landshark on the top podium spot at
San Ardo RR 35+ 123's
I went in to race thinking a break
would work if I could get an arts and safeway rider with me. I attacked almost
from the gun. No one seemed interested initially. I made several jumps but was
solo each time. A big move went as a counter to my attack. It was about
10riders. I missed the move. It had all 3safeway riders and carinio of arts. I
waited till one of the longer rollers and bridged across solo. The group worked
well together. we all started pacelining and continued to paceline for about a
lap at around 27mph. it felt like it was race over and this was the move but
arts didn't like the fact they only had one rider in it so they put their team
on the front to chase. Nunes did an amazing effort to bring the break back
after about a lap. We were shocked when we got caught, we weren't going slow. After
the catch theobald and a taleo rider attacked and got a gap in the section of
rollers. In the long straight away section with a crosswind art entire
Team went to the front and split the
field. Was fortunate to a have a wheel out of the wind and didn't have to use
much energy to follow, thanks monster media guy for that. Once the field was
split guys were trying to catch their breath and sitting up. I felt fresh still
and attacked. No one jumped with me and now I was solo. After a few minutes a
chase group of 3 riders lead by carinio of arts made it up to me. We
immediately we started the paceline. We caught the two riders in front of us a
few minutes later. Now we had a group of 6 one guy wasn't taking any pulls. He
just didn't have the strength and we dropped him shortly. It was me carinio and
theobald driving the break. The other two either skipped pulls or wouldn't stay
in the wind for more than a couple seconds. On the final lap with about 6miles
left in the race carinio flatted. Really unfortunate he deserved a good result
and made a huge effort on the day. At the time we had a 57 sec lead on
The field. When he went back to the
field arts went back to the front and chased. With 3 miles to go our lead was
only 30 seconds. I and theobald were the only ones that would pull. With about
1k to go the field was right on us. I started yelling at the two guys just
sitting on to pull or we would get caught. Neither of them would pull. I went
to the front and opened a gap on the rest of the break. At the uphill section
just before the freeway I gave it full gas. I sprinted till just past the
freeway but there was still 400meters to go and now my legs were totally
cooked. I still had a good gap on the field. I just tried to spin the best I
could to the finish and prayed my legs wouldn't seize up. Thankfully I made it
to the line solo with a couple seconds on the closing field for the win.
PCG Coach: Earl Zimmermann
