Nick Hand wins the Quantum Mesa Cycles' Maplewood Criterium Cat 3-4 race

After winning the Quantum Mesa Cycles’ Maplewood Crit, Nick reported this back to his coach, “The plan was to work for me and get everyone believing we would be racing for me again next week for state. We were going to race for another teammate who ended up breaking his foot in a non-cycling incident. So Keith and Brian took turns going off the front to pull out strong riders and dull their legs. Roy spent most of his time with me keeping me out of the wind and looking to see if help was needed at the front. The race was pretty easy to move around so I stayed back a ways to keep out of a lot of the jumps. With three to go I shot up onto my team's wheels sitting about 6 back form the front. There was a guy off the front of the bunch but Keith pulled for a few laps straight and brought him back with 2 to go. As we went in the last lap I had Keith and Roy still in front of me and we were looking really good. The back stretch of the course is a slight uphill and after doing so much work all day Roy and Keith bogged down a bit near the top. Another team (The Hub) came by on the left with 4 guys and I told my guys I was going to jump on that train. They guys gave me a bit of a cheer as I went by and I looked to move up more. I jumped around 2 of the Hub guys with only one turn to go. Chris Miller was in front of me and he had one lead out man in front of him. Chris is a strong sprinter so I was working out what my best move was. I hoped to come around him after the turn but he jumped and the amount of time we had before a bit of road furniture was too small. I was worried that my shot was over but I found it quite easy to sit behind Chris, so I decided to give it another shot after the roundabout. We came around it at a pretty fast clip and when I stood on the pedals I had a great snap and put a whole bike length between Chris and I in about 100 meters. It gave me enough time for my first post up. Felt pretty good.”

Awesome job, Nick!

PCG Coach: Bill McLaughlin