Air Force Cycling Classic Clarendon Cup

Today the Lupus Racing Team raced the Air Force Cycling Classic Clarendon Cup. We raced 100 laps on a technical one kilometer circuit. It really was a fun course. Since we had no sprinter for the day, we wanted to put riders into breakaways. We all started near the front, and the pace started off rather slow. A couple riders went up the road, but UHC, Cyclance, nor Astellas were represented. As a result I did not see this move as a threat and just surfed the front of the pack. Then the pace picked up, and Jonah found himself in a move. When Jonah's move got brought back, I immediately got into the counter, and that was the move of the day. 15 riders were in the group, and UHC had 4 or 5 riders in the move. Astellas and Cylance both had 2 or 3 riders in my group. In this particular scenario I ideally wanted to do no work. However, that is not possible because riders will take you off the back of the group if you do not work. This means you will have to waste more energy if you do not work at all, so I worked a little bit and let UHC drive the pace. We lapped up with about 60 laps to go, and I immediately made my way to the front of the peloton. My goal was to creep into another move, but that opportunity never arose. The peloton was content to let UHC set pace, and if there was no opportunity I would just waste energy for the finale by attacking. My legs felt super, and Oliver, Jonah, and Nicolai did a great job keeping me out of the wind in the finale. Oliver flatted inside 8 laps to go, so the left Jonah and Nic. Jonah took over and had me positioned right up there with Astellas and UHC. After Jonah cracked Nic helped keep me at the front. Over the last couple laps I had trouble staying on the wheels of UHC. I took the turns well and was pushing maximum, but I just could not match the speed of UHC. Over the last couple laps I pushed my heart out, and was able to come away with 10th place. I am really happy with how my teammates helped me today, but I am disappointed all I could achieve was 10th. Tomorrow we race a less technical 2 hour crit called the Crystal Cup.