Peace of Cake Road Race

I woke up to rain beating against my window and tin roof in the back. It was still dark out about 5:30am just before my alarm went off. I rolled out of bead and started the prerace routine. Coffee, food, email, pin the numbers on, and pack up the bike and clothes. It’s been a few years since I’ve done POC and the last time I did it I got a podium spot and was looking forward to what this race would offer. I headed north to Woodland Washington. I was on pace to be there my normal two hours ahead of time.

When I arrived in Woodland and got to the race site, it was empty, eerie. I check the race website on my phone and sure as shit, the race wasn’t in Woodland anymore they had moved it to Oregon south of Salem, now an hour and half away. This is not good! I’ve had races before when I didn’t have any warm up and that didn’t go well. I got shelled on the first lap. I get back on the highway and start my cannon ball run to the new race site. Had I left from the house in the right direction I would have spent an hour in the car not 2.

I got to the race site in time to get dressed, eat a little, sign in, and get a quick ramp up. The weather for this race was going to be the most challenging thing about this race. I had just spent 5 hours duking it out with some strong riders on Saturday and now I had my second cat three race in wind that would like to blow the lettering off my kit. The rain only added to the pleasant morning. 10:15am race starts.

We start out at a reasonable pace only because we are mandated. Then once the lead car gives us the go ahead the fury was unleashed. Man even the tail wind hurt here. First lap we must have shelled half our field. We mad a left turn that enter the pain cave, a road that had open fields on both sides so the wind could really wip through there. It guttered us all. No eshalon. We had to do that son of a bitch three more times. We made another left turn into the head wind and that was like hitting a wall of wind and water that sent us all backwards.

The second lap was when the attacks started flying. Even I was trying to get in on some of the action. Tired legs and all. Nothing I was in or around stuck. It was right back to the bunch for me. The race pretty much went like that for the duration. Chase and counter, chase and counter. My goal of staying with the main bunch went well. I was happy that I got to tough days in a row in. It hurt and I must have quit that race 40 times but I restarted 41 and it’s that last restart that really matters.

There was a breakaway of about 8 guys that stuck on the last lap and I got top 20 in the field sprint.

Great race, very euro.