How it went down...

I was riding pretty well, but had some bum luck... The race started in one town and finished in another town (point A to point B type of thing), but somewhere in between they set up a circuit that we did two laps on with two climbs that were about 12-15 percent and anywhere from 600-800 meters long and a section of pave. Then once we reached the finishing town we did 5 laps on a course with about a kilometer of pretty rough pave (so much so that my powertap harness broke and I lost my CPU one of the times through there)... We hit the finishing circuit in less than 3hrs and shortly after, I bridged up to a break (the second break on the road, the first one went the first time up one of the climbs). It took a while for us to get organized, but with the pave section breaking up the peleton every time they went through, the peleton was having a tough time getting organized too. Coming up to 2 laps to go, we hit the pave and I was sure we were going to stay away and I was gauranteed a top 20 finish just by finishing in the break but I felt good and had my eyes set on a top 10 spot. So we rolled in to the Pave and about 500 meters into it I here the sound of air coming out of my tire... I pulled over and got a front wheel from the mavic car and by then I am in no mans land with a few other riders... I hammered till I caught a small group then I heard the pinging sound of cobbles on my rim, this time it was the rear wheel... There was no neutral wheel support now, I had to wait for the peleton to pass me and wait for our car in the caravan (which was 12 cars back)... We switched out the wheel and I motorpaced for about half a lap till I got back on to the peleton. It was single file and with a crafty bottle handout/tow from the car I was able to close that last 10 meters to the peleton. I tried to get in a couple last ditch moves, but nothing would stick with a lap to go. I tried a kick in the last kilometer but got passed about 300 meters from the finish and finished in the back. I should have probably just waited for the sprint, but I'm not real sure we were even sprinting for a place... We finished 110 miles in about 4hrs even, pretty quick... Yesterday was a good confidence builder, I know I can race at that level now... I will be racing with the national team again tomorrow at an interclub, hopefully luck will go my way this time...

J signing off...