When we arrived at the race an hour before the start, we were the fourth car in the lot. Guess these folks don't arrive as early as they do in New England for a race. Or perhaps they weren't going to warm up if it means losing 15 minutes of sleep in the middle of the night. I quickly dressed and put together my bike as I waited for registration to open. After 20 painful minutes of waiting, the GC standings were posted. Sure enough, my fears were averted and I was in the pink jersey!!! I had accumulated 16 more points then the rider in second place and 20 more then the rider in third. I signed in and asked where the promoter was so that I could pick up my jersey. They assured me that he was around and would be back at 6:30 for an officials meeting. I started to walk away, when the other lady said "Well, it is 6:35, so that might not be exact." That's how I ended up racing my only day in the leaders jersey in the team kit.
The third stage could be described as a small circuit race or a large crit. We were to do 8 laps of a 2.2 mile course that again included a couple of rolling sections, two flat areas and another wide straight finish with a slight false flat uphill. Peter and I both had the race numbers of the top riders within 20 points of me taped to our frames. My intention was to finish in the top 10, limiting whomever won to only 20 more points then me and securing the overall title.
From the gun the race was fast. Very quickly the pack fell into a routine. A routine that was so predictable, everyone would sprint out of the corners like a mad dog, then at the base of the rise sit up. The group always came back together and there wasn't a need to spend excess energy chasing. On the second lap, a single rider rolled off the front and after two days of racing, the pack seemed to not care about him. The rider quickly got about a 20 second gap on the pack and yo-yoed for the next six laps. As we followed this single rider, another racer shouted to me (could have been at me) "Hey NEBC, you have teammates here, why aren't you going to get him?" I was confused at first, because it certainly sounded like he implied that I had multiple teammates available at my disposal to chase things down. I instead told him that if he can explain to me why I wanted to bring that rider back, I would. That I was in the overall lead and that rider wasn't a GC threat. He simply replied "Oh". and the race continued. On the seventh lap the guys decided to turn up the pace. A small group of 15 riders created a gap and we were off to the races. For the last two laps, the group remained strung out. Coming into the last turn I was positioned fourth and felt good about my chances. A rider in front of me decided that he wanted to move from the inside of the group to the outside and nearly took me out. As I accelerated and started to overtake him, he changed his mind and went back to the inside, this time bumping off my side. I remained seated, trying to remain secure through the finish and took fourth.
Final result, 2nd in stage 1, 4th in stage 2, 4th in stage 3, overall victory!!!
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