I went to this race with the expectation on finished on a better place than my last one (Warnerville which i finished 24th) I car pooling with Gonzalo and his Family such nice persons btw,so when we get there the rain it wasn’t that hard but you can feel the cold we pick up our numbers and we meet on the registration desk with Bill and Mike.
Our Field was the cat’s 5 group A and we have to complete 2 laps of 44 miles (my garmin data say it was more than that) when we started people got crazy and go full gas on the very first climb i held on the middle of the pack and saw Gonzalo he was going with the earlier break so i decide not to go because i was hauling others riders on my wheel;they gain about 2/3 min gap and i went back and sat to the second/third wheel and let others to work ,strong heads wings hard rain and a freaking cold all mixed together is a bad combination, there was a part on Chileno Valley rd we got crosswinds and very heavy rain when we got into Tomales rd we catch another riders from our category they been dropped from the breakaway and we start to work a little bit but again the weather wasn’t cooperating with us by this time we almost complete the 1st lap and many of the guys on our group was asking each other if they was going to continue on the race,you can saw the disappoint on their faces when we hit the bottom of the first climb to get into the finish line many of them quit,and while i was thinking about it another 4 racers they drop me and it was really painfully for me to get into the finish because on my second lap the rain it was so hard i can’t feel my toes on my foot.when i hit Chileno Valley rd it was a strong crosswing and i expend lots of energy there to kept the line at Tomales rd I saw a lonely rider and think on him as my target to shred some time on my group; i catch him just to know he wasn’t from my group he was from cat’s 4 he try to get my wheel but i dropped him on the rollers and finally at the descent when i get to Spring Hill rd I catch another rider this 1 from my category.With this i know i wasn’t the last rider from my group but i finished really tired wasted soaked and cold .
But what the hell this is bike racing and @ the end the only thing is very important to me is “I DIDN”T QUIT” Cheers to all my team mates who attend this American Version of the Hell of Petaluma (North) and i will see you later.
ALEX CORTEZ