Woo hoo!

Finally, after 9 years of getting fat... a result! Rolled home with a nice 3rd place finish yesterday.

After starting the race riding slower than I can ever remember racing (nobody wanted to work in the brutal wind), I finally found myself in a five man break that managed to stay off for the third of three laps. Thanks to some great work by a teammate disrupting chases, interferring in pace lines, and being a general nuisance to the main field, we in the break were set for the final climb to the finish.

At this point, I was pretty cooked. I had initiated the break and was solo for a good half lap before I caught the one guy up the road and was joined by a couple guys who had bridged. At the base of the climb, we managed to shed one of our companions, while watching another ride away from the group. Nobody was willing to chase the guy riding away. He won.

That left three of us battling it out for second. To make a long story short, I beat one guy and one beat me in the sprint for second. Not a bad day overall, and a nice result to begin the year.

Before I go, one man's opinion of Sven Nijs: