Mike and His Bike

The kaleidoscope that is my life

Cat 5
The race started out pretty slow and the weather was perfect. We had a full field of 50 with UC Davis having the largest representation. I beleive they had about 6 guys racing together in our field and I think a lot of us were watching them to see what they would do. The first lap was feeling kind of slow and we had a couple of guys go off the front but not with enough effort for anybody to counter and they ended up falling back within no time. Mike Slayden and Dominick Foster were representing team Vapor along with myself. Our plan was to launch attacks after the 2nd lap(out of 4) and see where things went from there. About half way through lap 1 we got paced by the motorcyle as Tim's group came blowing by us. We had just been lapped by the fast master's group. We yelled some quick words of encouragement and continued on. I was hoping that seeing the other group moving so fast would up the tempo of our group......no luck. I tend to get antsy cruising along but was enjoying making some new friends. Thankfully lap 2 picked up the pace a little but not too much. It added a little spice to the ride but not too much. Kind of like dipping a chip in some salsa then whiping it off before you eat it. As we rolled across the finish line of lap 2 I started to look for Mike Slayden to talk about getting some attacks going and shaking off some of the free riders. Just as I spotted Mike He took off on the first long straight away. The wind was hitting us from the front and the left and his attack spread the field out in a nice long straight line. For some reason it also moved everybody to the center of the road which turned out to be really nice for me. It took the pack a little time to realize what had happend to their liesurely Saturday ride and Mike continued to push the pace. As soon as the long line caught Mike I came up from about 3/4 back and took the nice draft that everybody created. I gained speed as I reached the front and was about 95% by then and I picked it up a bit more and kept it moving. Everybody seemed to be happy just to point out the fact that I was attacking and let me go. I settled into a hard pace and opened up about 15-20 seconds on the group. Within a couple of minutes I saw 2 trying to bridge the gap. I picked up the pace a little and held it there. That seperated the 2 and it was just one. As he caught me I noticed it was Mike. We had a quick conversation and he went back to make sure the group stayed lazy. On the Hills I seemed to gain some time on the group and they seemed to get some of it back on the flats. The Third lap rolled around and the pack had not gotten it together yet. Later I found out the Dominick and Mike were taking a lot of slack from the group for doing an amazing job at slowing them down. Thanks guys!! I looked down at my HRM and figured I could keep the HR up for 30 or so minutes and pushed on, attacking the hills and staying down in the drops on the flats. I figured it was only a matter of time that the group would get together and decided to bridge the gap. Nope. The long stretch of bumpy road was a little rough to keep a steady pace but once that was done, the race was pretty much over. I saw the 1KM mark and got a good boost from knowing we were almost finsihed and I would be able to pee soon. I crossed the finish line first.....Thanks to great teamwork from Mike Slayden and Dominick Foster. I know those guys got a lot of lip from the pack. Mike pulled of a solid 10 finish and Dominick fought off some bad hamstring cramps to finish a couple back from Mike. Thank you guys for an amazing job and it was fun to race with you!! Thank you also to the lazy Cat 5's who were yelling from the back of the group to pick up the pace but never did any work. On a side note, it was pretty amazing to see Tim, looking strong, blow by all of us with his group. Vapor is going to have a great year.