Ohio State Criterium Championships

Jeff German and I were the only Savage Hill riders in the cat. 4/5 race. I think Break Away had about seven guys in the race, so I figured they were the ones to watch. As usual, I was right. Aside from some crazy racers and awful crashes it was a great race. Early in the race some Airborne guy tried to get away, but I think he was the guy who left race on a backboard. Other than that, things were quiet for the 7 or 8 of the 15 laps.

A little over half way through the race, the Break Away guys went to work. Apparently only three of the guys in the pack were interested in chasing people down, I just happened to be one of them.. Break Away did a beautiful job of working the pack over with repeated attacks. When the winning attack came, everyone who was interested in chasing was out of gas. With first place locked, the field had to fight for second. Going into the final four corners of the race, the field was still together. The pace started to slow, until a couple of guys gave stepped up the pace in the last long straight away before the finish. The pack followed them. We nailed the final two corners and it all came down to a sprint. I figured it was time to follow the sage wisdom in the Savage Hill website, so I came out of the corner in my 12. I jumped out of the saddle and started the sprint immediately after the corner. I passed a couple of guys and my 35 mph sprint held off the rest of the pack, so I took second. Field sprints Rule! It sure was nice to get my best finish of the year with my wife watching..

ok.. here it is.. The biggest crash for savage hill

Crashed on the 2nd lap at about 30 mph going through the 3rd corner of the course. Collected myself and rode over to the wheel pit and changed out my rear wheel. My right leg is turning purple in the wheel pit and Will shoves me back into the race. I work the next 30 laps for Ryan. I go from the front of the Peloton to the back about 6-7 times during the race. Even launched about 2 attacks mixed in their somewhere and blocked about 4 laps for Ryan. All the while my handle bars are sideways, Stem is about 2 inches off from my wheel. Eventually with about 5 laps to go I call it quits with my legs emptied and my knee and elbow swollen. Roll up the ambulance and ask them if they can spare some supplies. They ask me if I just crashed.. and I say "yea. but like a hour ago."
The ambulance crew were extremely helpful and thanks to the New Bremen Crew. Ryan ends up taking home two primes during the race and getting top 15. Very good result for Ryan the course was just to flat for him.