The Burlington Road Race, which usually takes place the Friday before Snake Alley is usually a good time for everyone there to just sit in and enjoy the weather. The race just usually turns out to be a 3 hour recovery ride at 30 mph. Then when the race starts heading back onto the main road running into the finish, there is about 15 miles of people jockeying for position, good practice, before a very fast downhill run into the finish.

The race this year turned out mostly the same, however the breakaway had a little more firepower than usual containing the reigning Ukranian national champion and one of AeroCat’s stronger riders. Towards the end of the race Texas Roadhouse set pace at the front of the group for a while in an effort to bring them back but it was too little too late, and our team decided to sit in to save our legs for Snake Alley on Saturday.

The run into the finish was as hectic as usual, with everyone being completely fresh, everyone felt they had a shot at front of the race. I managed to find Paul’s wheel going into the last kilometer. We somehow ended up on the front and Paul sprinted up the last climb dumping me out with about 500 meters to go, I jumped onto the lead out swarming around us and was in a perfect position to sprint. I even got onto Eric Marcotte’s wheel, who usually win’s a race or two in this weekend. I kept on telling myself to not burn my matches too early, be patient be patient. As the sprint opened up we could see the victory salute of the winner about 20 seconds up the road. This time however I was a little bit too patient as we covered the last 500 meters very quickly and really only stuck my nose out into the wind over the last few seconds of the sprint, ending up fourth in the field sprint and seventh overall.

-Chris Uberti