Tour of Elk Grove Criterium

The 2009 running of the Tour of Elk Grove brought out a full field of riders at the start of the Cat 4 race on Saturday. Weather conditions were not the best with a strong west wind and light rain showers persisting throughout the race. The race started as usual with a number of attacks but nothing able to open a gap. The rain started about 3 laps in which immediately caused a number of crashes on the slick cobbled crosswalk at the 180 degree corner. My teammate Jeff G. unfortunately fell prey to these cobbles the first time around but many more followed suit. Later in the race 4 riders go into a break that I thought wouldn't stick because we were only about 15 mintues into the race. I was wrong because the winner of the race couldn't be caught, we were only able to track down 50% of the breakaway. I rode a clean race staying out of trouble until the final lap. At the 180 corner, two riders went down in front of me (story of my season) I came to a complete stop as everyone tried to navigate around the downed riders. I hammered back up to speed and found myself sitting about 20th wheel in the group. On the back stretch I sprinted up to second wheel and held the rider's wheel in front of me until about 200 meters to the finish line. I made my decisive move and went all out into the strong headwind. I was going like hell up the right side to win the field sprint and take 3rd in the race but to my dismay, two riders came screaming to my left and just got their wheels across before me. It was a disappointing set of circumstances to be caught like that right at the line but I was satisfied with my 5th place finish.