From Joaquin...

According to my friends at Wikipedia, there are about 250,000 words in theEnglish language. I think the most appropriate one to describe DBC’sperformance in the Men’s 35+ 5s race is: just about F-ing perfect. It was Bob Blyth, Charly Magnuson, Mike Broz, Tom Clementi, Doug Rowland (norelation), and me lined up to race. I’m guessing that before yesterday the 6 of us had fewer than 20 road races between us. However, we were all committed to working together as a team and not just 6 guys who all happened to wear matching kits that morning. Due to our inexperience, we decided tokeep the strategy simple – 1) stay as close to the front as possible, 2) tryto get some DBC in every break, 3) work together to chase down any DBC-lessbreaks, 4) sit on the pack and any bridge attempts if a good DBC breakdevelops, 5) line it up for the sprint in the last 1.5 miles. And that’s pretty much how it happened. The 9-person InfoVista team controlled the pace of the pack for most of the first lap, setting up a good rotation and reeling in the first few half-hearted attacks. DBC was rightbehind them and started surging past them as we went up and over the KOM thefirst time, with Charly M taking 2nd, bracketed on either side by one of the9 Bicycles Plus/Sierra Nevada guys out there. And then Bob Blyth showed upat the front and DBC took control for the remaining 22 miles of the race. Bob just started hammering - like that feeling in your head after a night ofway too many Jaeger shots and not enough Endurolytes – into a stiff headwindwith the pack strung out behind. I was right on his wheel and it took meall of 2.81 seconds to realize that Bob was cycling on a whole differentplane of existence and that this could be DBC's chance to break apart therace. I knew I couldn’t hang with him for long so I did the next best thing- got into my drops, put on my best haka face, and started soft pedaling tohelp Bob slip away. He had a gap of almost 100m before anyone else realizedwhat was happening and came around me to try to chase. I managed to keepmyself right up at the front to keep things from getting organized and Bobcontinued to get further and further away. Once we hit the frontage road I got stuck way to the inside and the pack finally started gaining ground on Bob. Desperate, I faded all the way tothe back of the pack to attack up the windward side, calling out to the restof the DBC group to come along. We charged to the front with most of thepack on our tails and then sat up to slow the pace down. One guy crossedthe centerline to try to bridge up to Bob, Doug and I jumped on his wheel,and we got almost halfway to Bob before the moto ref rolled up and sent him all the way to the back of the pack. Luckily, nobody else attacked justthen and Bob was able to gain more ground on the pack as we headed into the downwind section. It went on like that for the next lap and a half - a solid wall of orangeand blue controlling the pack trying to give Bob plenty of room off thefront and sitting on any breakaways before they could get established. Special props to Charly, who gave up his shot at the KOM title to anchor our rolling road block in lap 2 and to Doug who blocked and chased like a champion inhis very first race. For that whole 22 miles, only three riders got awayfrom us and managed to catch and start working with Bob – one BP/SN rider who launched at Warp Factor 3 and two unattached dudes who sprinted through the gravel to get around us going up the KOM on lap 2 in the confusioncreated by the brief hail and windstorm we rode through. How bad was the hail? Really bad. I ended the race covered by so many red, angry weltsthat it looked like I had just spent the last 90 minutes making love to an octopus. One guy from another team got hailed in the mouth so hard hechipped a tooth. By the time we crested the KOM for the last time, it looked certain that the breakaway was going to stay away for good, so all that was in question waswho would finish where in the race for the best of the rest. Unfortunately,while we were all there with the lead chase group, we were too spread outand too spent from controlling the race to get ourselves organized. But weall managed to finish strong with everyone in the top 20 with 3 top tens. Theicing on the cake was rolling up to Bob to learn that he had taken first place! And the chocolate Jimmies on the icing on the cake was hearing allthe compliments from the rest of the field as they rolled by: “Way to control the race, DBC,” “Awesome teamwork, DBC,” “You guys were tough outthere, DBC,” “Great race, DBC.” Yeah, it was a great race. The finish: Bob B. 1st, Mike B. 7th, Joaquin 9th, Tom C. 11th, Doug Rowland12th (his first race!) and Charly M. also somewhere in the top 20. -j