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Rain and Pain

It just so happens that when The Weather Channel calls for 100% chance of rain they actually mean it. Trent, Hoppy, Tommy, Matt, Evan, and I went out to the Chicago suburb of Downer’s Grove for the USPRO Criterium Championships. We arrived Friday to 80 degree sunny weather. When we awoke Saturday morning it was a different story. The rain had arrived and as we were soon to find out it wasn’t going to go away before us.

Saturday evening was the Pro-Am event. Most of the pro teams use this 50K race as a warm up for tomorrow’s USPRO event. Due to the rain and the 225 man field it was a wreck filled event. Luckily all of us stayed off the ground and got our legs going for the next day. Sunday was more of the same, rain, rain and more rain. The plan for the day was to keep Hoppy and Evan out of trouble and have the rest of us taking turns covering moves. The race started fast and stayed fast. The pack was single file the entire time. With Evan and Tommy riding good position at the front and myself a bit further back we were looking good going into the final 10 laps.

That was until Evan crashed two times within five laps, but Evan isn’t called “The Hulk” for nothing. Unfazed Evan made his way back up to the front with the help of Trent and Tommy. Going into the last lap it was pretty much every man for himself, I was riding conservative to try and avoid any last minute wrecks. Evan avoided a big wreck in the final straight to end up taking 7th place. Tommy narrowly missed the top ten to finish 11th and I came in for 16th. All in all is was a good weekend for us, especially considering no one was injured in any of the wrecks.

Neil

Photo credit: Kurt Jambretz www.actionimages.cc

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