If you could use one word to describe the road race it would be, sweltering, two words would be red-hot (one word) and ambiguous, as USA cycling failed to elaborate on the 3 minute rule in effect. On the start line they stated that any riders falling out of a 3 minute window would be pulled from the race because they couldn't block traffic for that long. One, why do you hold a road race in such a densely populated area, two, if there was a solo break with a 3 minute lead does that mean he wins by default? Three, most people assumed that the 3 minute window applied to dropped riders not chase groups, which was not clear at the start. Groups of 20 plus riders were pulled on the fourth lap because they were just outside of the 3 minute window, only 13 of the 100+ riders finished!
The race was six laps for a total of 120 miles on rolling terrain with more than 1,000 feet of climbing per lap. The race started off with a two man break that was quickly reeled back in. On the second lap a break went up the road with some of the race favorites along with Jafer as he tried to hold on. He was hoping his legs would come around but became gapped off during an attack and drifted back to the first chase group of about 8 riders. For the next lap and a half he tried to hang tough but eventually fell off the pace during an attack when the chase group caught the lead group and drifted back to the shattered peloton with a few other riders and that's basically how the race unfolded. Most of the remaining riders behind the break were pulled as the peloton was more than 3 minutes down.
Thomas suffered a flat and with no wheel truck was forced to abandon after 60 miles, Jafer was blown and abandoned after 65 miles, Oscar and Joey were pulled after 80 miles for falling outside of the 3 minute window. The race was so hot that we finished nearly an entire bottle before leaving the feedzone. The ideal situation would have been to drink 4 bottles a lap but we can only carry two at a time, as we didn't want to carry the extra weight in our jerseys. After the race, we were caked white with salt lines like we've never seen before. Our helmets straps were nearly completely white along with our faces as a nice salty crust covered our body.The U23 crit in Anaheim, CA was not exactly what you would call national championship material, as it was entirely in the Los Angeles Angels parking lot; which as you can imagine was extremely flat, hot, and fast (but not that hard)! What do I mean by fast but not hard? Well, the course was so wide that the peloton was usually 10-15 riders wide, which made it very easy to sit in at 30 mph and the turns were wide open. Joey fared the best on the team taking a well deserved 12th while Thomas took 20th (Oscar and Jafer rolled in a little further back after a last lap crash separated the field).
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