Valley of the Sun

Ok so this post is coming a little late, but if you haven't noticed
already I'm keeping a trend of posting one or two days later each week.
I'm not exactly sure why, but it has something to do with me being
really lazy. Anyways this past weekend was the Valley of the Sun stage
race, and the Metro Volkswagen team was well represented throughout
most of the categories. Being the first major race of the year and my
first chance to ride with my teammates, I raced juniors this past weekend. Anyways here's a recap of each event:

Time Trial: The time trial, despite my best efforts in the road race, was
pretty much the determining factor for this race. Being around 25k and
full of crosswinds, the course was not only longer than nationals but
one that would separate
the powerful riders from the week ones. Unfortunately it was a bad day
for me, as I was plagued by a couple of major issues. For one, my rear
disc pulled into the chain stay (not the first time I've done this),
and I had some issues with my legs. Overall I ended up 3:30 down off of
the GC leader.

Road Race: We had originally
planned for me to be leading the race by this point, and that I would
simply have to ride to protect my jersey and get my teammates up the
road. But after the issues in the time trial and what I think was and
underestimation of the strength of the other riders, our tactics for
this day shifted dramatically. I was now going for both a stage win and
the GC. What resulted was close enough, as I rode away solo to the stage win and put about 3 minutes on the field.

Crit: At the start of the criterium
i was 27 seconds down and it was decided that I would go for all or
nothing. After a couple of minutes to let things settle down I began to
attack relentlessly,
but the leaders were simply too motivated and the race was way too
short (25+5!) meaning there wasn't enough time to wear down the field
and slip off the front.

So what did I get out of Valley of the Sun? A stage win, a fourth place GC finish and some racing experience with my Texas based team mates. I guess the only thing that could've gone better would have been if I had put about 4 minutes on the field in the road race, but whatever.

Anyways this weekend will be the Sanford and Lake Mary crits, so I'll probably be coming back from Orlando with a urine-soaked chamois from my first real Pro 1/2 crits.