Saturday. April 17.

85 degrees and sun on Thursday gave way to 41 degrees and wind driven snow and ice pellets for race time Saturday. This was the kind of day where you question why you race a bike and why anyone else would either. But the roads were mostly dry, six of us from Team Panther showed up to race and so did about 45 others in the Cat 1,2,3 field. Andy Clarke, driven by an urgent need to generate heat to stay warm, covered the early break. Midway through the race, Kirk and I bridged up to the break, which was now about 12 riders, including some good sprinters from other teams. Andy and I took turns attacking the break, which got me into a 3 man group with Matt Weeks (Carbon) and Dave Chernosky (Cleve. Clinic). Knowing Dave is a fast finisher, Matt and I took turns jumping him and got away with two laps to go. I was able to take the win, Andy Clarke finished 6th and Kirk led out Andy Moskal and Brent to clean up the field sprint. Good teamwork in the bad weather.

All’s well that ends well – except that I decided to ride the 40km back home after the race, and that’s when it really started to rain. I love this sport…

-Paul Martin