'tis with captain Morgan in hand that I write this report....
Early start, 6am wake up. Betsy the owner had made bread yesterday so we were treated to French toast with rubber eggs. Spirits lifted, we embarked on our day. Getting ready in the car park was a hoot. Manny has a seriously good Arnold Schwaartzanegger accent, Chrispy was delivering his one liners, Ben was being Ben, Mike had the steely eye which we now translate as "I'm getting win the break and riding hard all day". Prescilla took care of bottles and even planned a 5km run up the back of Appalacian Gap to greet us at the finish (after providing the team with a feed).
The race began uneventfully, Manny dropped a chain and hoped to DNF but Ben was wise to his japery and stopped to pull him back to the Peloton. We didn't actually see them again until mile 55. Chrispy had a flat at mile 40 at entered into a conversation with the official driving the car. The SRAM support car had gone up the road to cover the break, but the official had a stack of wheels in the backs of her vehicle which she claimed she couldn't give to riders. Go figure. Chris rode the last 30 miles at 310w and finished very close to the main group.
Meanwhile, at the front of the race...
Mike and I covered some dumb attacks and kept the distance between several breaks pretty close for Calvin's sake. Dynamike eventually got into a break that stuck for the day, 14 guys in all that basicially went from mile 20 until the end. With Magic Mike up the road, Calvin and I stayed in the top 25 all day. several other breaks tried rolling off the front but the yellow jersey team started working after the KOM at mile 40 and by mile 50 they were reeled. We were stoked to know that MC Mike was still away and had 4 mins on the peloton. Then Ben and Manny appeared and we set ourselves up for baby gap. Manny took the lead and took us to 10th wheel going winto the climb. Calvin and Ben were looking good, I was feeling tired; millingaround the top 25 all day, covering early breaks had softened me up. I was yelling at Ben to get close to Calvin going up Baby Gap; a combination of Ben getting mad, and me falling off the back spurred me into action. 2nd wind engaged I caught up with the boys, Manny drilling the right side going into the main climb, me hammering the left side...RHR had good position going into the final climb. Still no sign of Craig so we didn't go balls out up thenf
