Somebody, anybody, take my wheel, make this pain stop!

[Gabriel Keck]

I rolled past Jim who was struggling to fix his flat front tire midway through lap 2... and I begged him to take my wheel. I knew the race was pretty much over for me, and it was a time of pain and despair... For 2010, the pro men did not have to do the 2 twenty mile loops as in previous years. Instead, the format was 5 laps of approx 4 kilometers. This sounds easier, but it made for wicked fast laps, and unfortunately, I could only hang for one of those laps. As we rolled around the Laguna Seca racetrack starting on the second lap, it was strung the heck out, going all out. About halfway through that paved section, a group ahead was forming a strong paceline, and I knew I needed to tuck in on that group and draft. Jim was at the tail end of them and was looking back encouraging me to move up. I was drafting on the wheel of another rider, hoping he would bridge up, but instead he began to fade. I finally came around him and went all out to close the gap to the riders ahead, and had just about made it when the pace picked up again, and I was left out in the wind. A few guys came around me, and I chased on with them, but just had nothing left for those short, punchy climbs that made up so much of the course. It got so that if I heard a rider behind me, I would automatically move to the side of the trail to let them by because it seemed that nobody was riding as weak as I. All the fight had been knocked out of me. That's why when I saw Jim fixing his flat tire, I really wanted him to take my wheel, because I could see that the fire of competition still burned bright in him. But of course he declined the offer, and in pain and despair, I rolled on. But soon thereafter, an old friend from Flagstaff came up, offering some encouraging words, and even though I didn't really want to, I put in an effort, and began to match his pace. We soon made up a group of 4-5 riders, and slowly I started to find the joy in racing again... chasing up hills, taking the twisty, sandy singletrack so fast that the tires are just drifting around, on the verge of control, thinking that just maybe we'll finish lap 4 fast enough to not get pulled. But it was not to be. We had lost too much time to the leaders, and up ahead we could see the officials waving riders off the course, so instead of a finish line, we sprinted for the officials, getting in one last effort at the Sea Otter Classic.