Napa Downtown Grand Prix

Josh, Sean, Justin, Clint, Randy, and I showed up for this short track lollipop shaped crit. The weather was super hot and so was the racing. Once again the BPG / Montano Velo boys rode a great team race, covering or initiating just about every break that went up the road. About half way through the race Sean got away with JAndy Mondonca in what turned out to be the move of the day. Unfortunately Sean wasn’t able to hang with JAndy’s 54x11 pedal mashing. Josh then got off the front to try to chase JAndy back with Sean. After that counter came back it was Justin’s turn to try to get up to JAndy. He crossed 15 seconds of the 20 second gap in just a couple of laps. It looked like Justin was going to catch JAndy and be able to go for the win when he washed out in the hairpin turn. With five laps to go I put in a big attack and got a decent gap off the front of the pack. With three to go I was cought by what I thought was just Kevin Klein and Phil Zajkek, but may have in fact been the entire pack. After letting each of them take two pulls, so I could recover, I pulled through hard into the head wind and through the hairpin. I saw that I had gapped the field, cuz Phil and Kevin had sat up, so I accelerated hard down the tailwind start/ finish straight to get my gap back. I stayed clear until half a lap to go when I was cought by two chasers just as I was hitting the headwind. I was able to get the wheel of the Lombardi’s rider who was just sitting on Rand Miller to block for JAndy. I was able to pass the Lombardi’s rider in the hairpin the final time with some good momentum and took Sergei’s advice from the sidelines to put in one more big effort, to outsprint Rand for the second place finish.

Specialized / Sierra Nevada Criterium

BPG / Montano Velo showed up with a strong team with Clint, Randy, Matt T., Justin, Logan, Josh and JD. It was 95 degrees in the central valley for this office park slug fest. The plan for the day was to be sure we had guys in the break, because we were pretty sure it was going to split up. BPG rode strong initiating or covering all of the attacks of the day. After getting one prime early I followed another rider attacking for a later prime 25 minutes into the race, and ended up with four other guys off of the front. Logan followed another group to bridge to my group, to make 2 BPGs out of 8 shortly after. Josh then followed the last guys up to the front a lap later to bring 3 BPG riders into the break of ~12. The break worked fairly well together, and the rest of the BPG guys did a great job to shut down the pack. We finally lapped the field with five laps to go. Justin, Clint, Randy, and Matt all did a great job keeping the group together and the pace high for the rest of the race. Just after we got the bell for the last lap, after monster pulls by Matt and Randy, a Waste management rider who was down a lap attacked to try to set up his teammate, who had lapped. Josh handily got his wheel and another WM rider pulled me and the pack back up to them. At 400 meters to go just as the pace at front started to slow, Cameron from team Agel?, who I didn't recognize, but had been impressed with his pulls during the breakaway, attacked hard. He came by on the left going a good 5 mp/h faster than the guys on the front. I accelerated immediately up the right and closed his gap to two bike lengths by the last corner and continued to gain on him down the finishing straight. Unfortunately for me, Cameron was really strong and stayed clear to the line to win by a bike length. Josh sprinted in for 7th and Logan finished an impressive 8th even with a nose bleed and cramps.BPG put together another great team effort to end up with three guys in the top ten. I'm only sorry I couldn't cap off all of the great work with a W!