While some of you were suffering on Rouge Roubaix, I drove 80 miles
north to Albany, GA for my first set of races as a Cat 3
1st Event- Downtown TT- only 3.6 km, on the crit course, 12 corners.
Used my road bike with 404’s. Did decently but took 1 corner too slow-
cost me a few seconds. I placed 5th with a time of 4:34. But I dropped
10 seconds off my time from last year for the same course.
2nd event- 50 minute Crit. Really windy. 40 person field. Rode the best
crit I think I ever have. Got off the front 2 or 3 times, just kept
attacking. One of my attacks split the field into 2 groups. But coming
into the last 2 laps, I made a stupid move and got boxed in. Ended up
midfield at about 22nd.
3rd Event- 63 mile road race. 45 riders. Wind picked up throughout the
day. Started out slow but then there was attack after attack. I went off
the front with 1 other rider at mile 17 and were joined by 7 others who
bridged up. We stayed off the front for the next 43 miles, anywhere from
20 seconds to 1 minute off the pack. With about 6 miles to go we turned
into the wind and that was our downfall. I was feeling fine, but we
started dropping riders. Eventually we were down to 4 guys and were only
going 20 mph into a stiff head wind and got caught with 3 miles to go. I
managed to stay up front though and hung in for the final sprint- ended
up 10th.
I think I ended up around 7th or 8th in the GC. I was happy with my
performance this weekend even though my placings weren’t great. But at
least for my first cat 3 races, I was able to hang and not get dropped.
So I look forward to Tuscaloosa.
Aaron Guyer
