Drove down to Somerset with Jim Havey for the somewhat hilly Mt. Victory road race. I decided to race the 4/5's to minimize the trips up the nasty backside climb. Turns out Brad Leach, Christoph, and Josh were all in the group as well. We rolled off in glorious sunshine in a field of over 50. I was riding in the back half of the field, taking it easy, when, two miles in, crash. Bodies all over the place, going down just in front of me. I had to unclip to get around, and then chased back on to a reduced front group. Only now I made sure I was riding closer to the front.

Stayed near the front of the bunch on the first climb. Many thanks to Greg for the loan on an 11-28 cassette, it was a lifesaver. The race was pretty uneventful, with both Christoph and I riding in the top 10-15 until we got to the bottom of the nasty backside climb. Things were looking OK until we hit the final, steepest, section of the climb. I lost contact, rolling over the top with only a 100 meter deficit to a reduced group of eight ahead of me as second group on the road. And the sad thing is, I could see Christoph up there, but I didn't have the legs to close that down. I ended up forming a partnership with Joel from McDonald's and we found and dropped several partners, before riding the last 14 miles together, trading pulls. We kept the group in sight for the first 10 miles, but that was the best we could manage.

My goal was to improve on my result of 12th two years ago. I ended up 13th. Oh well. A beautiful day of racing and a very well run event.