Bryan Park KOM and WIN from a textbook three-man breakaway 🏆 (BP#4)

Shout out to my brother and sister-in-law for watching the kids tonight. Mom had a meeting, so I had the kids, but man did I need a solid Bryan Park this week. Chicken soup for the soul.

TL;DR: A 3-man early break sets the Bryan Park course record. Yours truly takes the spoils. Over 29mph aint nothing to scoff at for a midweek crit night. Strava Link:   / strava  

The game plan was to make up some ground on Vince in the overall points race. That meant getting in the right break and DRIVING it. I really wanted to race tonight smarter and be a little more selective with my efforts. I told myself I could only use 2 matches tonight, and it helped to bring back some of those spidey senses.

From the get-go, it didn't seem like many teams were particularly hungry to get ahead of the race tonight. Sweetspot was active, but the first moves of the day were mostly hungry solo and/or smaller team riders. Even before the race started, Macon was my guy tonight. I thought he and I could do some damage together, and with our teams, Cutaway Blanchard's and Sweetspot behind (the two largest teams), it could be really tough to get any sort of concerted chase established. On top of that, it was going to be hard for anyone to bridge.

Around the fourth lap, there was a group of 5 or 6 with good representation up the road with a modest gap. I was waiting for a good opportunity to bridge if it seemed like they were working well together, but when I saw Macon take the express lane on the descent into Party Corner, it seemed like sailing right by was the better move. I think there was a sweetspot rider on my wheel who let us go initially, but when I saw we had some room and momentum, I gave it a lil squeeze. Macon took a solid first turn, and from there, I knew we were ready to COOK.

John Kruegler was in the initial break that we leapfrogged. Two laps into our effort, I was surprised to see him coming up to us clean already. He must have been FLYING. Strava said it was his second-fastest lap of BP ever, and considering all his monster leadouts and sprint wins over the years, that's definitely saying something. After the race he said he spotted the moment to go when a Sweetspot rider was on the front and taking the uphill corner wide on entrance. He rushed the gap while the door got shut on anyone who might have followed. TEXTBOOK.

From there on, it was a good old-fashioned, honest hammer ride. 3 strong riders is the perfect breakaway for this course. We all traded turns, taking 40-second half-lap pulls and resting a lap for most of the effort. It was essentially forty seconds on, a minute forty off and we were all pretty fresh at the end for it.

The gap grew to 20-25 seconds pretty quick and sat at 30 for a few laps before ballooning out to 50 with 6 laps left. Macon probably could have sat on once the gap was well in our favor, but kudos to him for keeping it honest. I'm rooting for him to pull a fast one on us next time, though.

Plans are hard to communicate at 30 mph, but my initial race-winning plan was to go all in on an attack with about 800m to go, slingshotting passed Macon after his turn on the downhill. I told John I wanted him to sit on Macon and let me slingshot up the inside, but he thought I was asking him to give it everything after Macon's turn. In the end, a win is a win, and seeing your teammate empty the tank for you sure gives you a little extra gasss in the final, but this was prime 1-2 ground.

I'm really proud of this one, and boy, did I want it. Between work, very little sleep (and everything else that comes with raising baby and a toddler), an ever-growing list of house projects, and months since our last date night, life has felt like a lot lately - not to mention the good but agonizingly inconsistent training. This win was nothing short of cathartic. Love this sport. Love this team. Still kinda hungry, though. 😉