The North Star Grand Prix is a 5 day, 6 stage stage race in and around the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area of Minnesota. The first day started off with a 5 mile flat TT along the Mississippi River in the morning. There was a turn around, but you could pedal almost the entire time. I went out a little too hot and had to back off later in the effort. Our best rider in the TT was Nicolai as expected at only 22 seconds off the race lead. We should be able to help him gain that time back throughout the week.
In the evening we raced a 40 lap crit in downtown St. Paul. This crit had 6 turns over one kilometer, and there were a lot of manhole covers and cracks in the road to make things spicy. I got the best starting position ever at 150th wheel out of 150 and decided I would gradually make my way to the front throughout the race. I had fun railing turns to save energy. I would leave gaps going into turns, go through the turns faster than the other riders, and pass about 5 guys in a turn without accelerating. Finally, with about 15 laps to go I made it to the front and wanted to help Evan. With 11 laps to go a guy crashed in front of me and had his handlebars stuck in my front wheel. I took a free lap, but was put back in around 50-60th wheel. The pace was picking up, but I went back to picking off riders. I never could regain contact with Evan but had a fun race. A lot of riders went down, and we had Oliver and Nolan go down. They are not injured terribly other than some road rash. Nicolai did not lose any time and moved up to 13th in the overall. Today we have an 83 mile road race in Cannon Falls, MN. This stage tends to splinter because there are a ton of crosswinds. It should be an exciting day!
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