Although 86 guys showed up for Saturday’s Monsters of the Midway, apparently some Chicagoland racers were scared away by Sunday’s tough Fox River Grove race near a ski jump hill. Only 30 guys showed up to race Fox River Grove today, and since we had a nearly full squad the onus was on us to win. [The notable absentee was birthday boy Hogan Sills.]
With only 45 minutes of racing, Brian Dziewa of ABD lit it up from the gun and people were already going out the back. I rode pretty conservatively the first couple of laps, waiting for more and more people to fall off the pace. I was also feeling my efforts from the day before- mainly attacking all race but also the 50 mile round trip commute down to Hyde Park from Evanston.
Fortunately, as more riders went out the back my legs came around somewhat. By about halfway through the contest it was down to Freund, Sherer, myself plus Bryan McVey (Recycling) and some strong XXX dude [Dave Moyer], so we had pretty good odds. I was pretty confident that Mike would have the race locked up if we all went to the line together, but why risk it? The three of us started trading attacks and Ryan made a good dig with 3 or 4 laps to go that stuck for a while. However, a strong move by the XXX rider on the climb brought Ryan back so I hit out hard again. I was able to hold everyone off for the last two laps to win solo. Mike cleaned up 2nd behind for a nice Verizon 1-2.
Hopefully, this race was a sign of things to come with big races at Champaign and then Memorial Day coming up.
A huge thanks to our sponsors as my Madone felt really great on both the climb and descent today, and also thanks to everyone who was out there cheering for us on on the climb.
Will
PS
Great work to the rest of the NU riders out there. Ian "Too Pro" Murray completed his sweep of the weekend, winning his sprint by a huge margin (can you say, "time gap"?). Bryan and Andy looked strong on the climb as well. Axie battled hard for fourth in the women's open, and I hear Dane and Tommy and Eric (on his hot new Felt AR bike) did a great job in the 5's, though I got there too late to see it. And everybody was kind enough to stick around to cheer for me on the hill after their races were over- I appreciated the encouragement. So thanks, and let's keep representing NU cycling well as the summer continues!
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