Mike's Bike Blog

The course on tap for the Thursday Driveway Race Series was the notorious City Loop. You may recall from last year this was the course for my only forray into the Driveway last year and I got pulled at the end. I was going for a little redemption this time.

It just wasn't meant to be. I got clipped in quickly from the start line and was ready to go but after the first turns I found myself engulfed by the surge of riders and on the only straightaway I could see the main group slowly starting to pull away.  Small pockets were forming of riders as the field was getting strung out and there I was way in the back. For the next few laps I made my way around guys but with the number of turns that was proving difficult as they would slow so much around the corners. I finally cleared the last of the pack filler that had been shot off the back only to realize I wasn't closing the gap to the lead group. So I rode solo averaging 24.3 mph which was no picnic do to the wind. One nice thing at least with riding solo I didn't have to hit the breaks at all through the corners I could hold a smooth line and a consistent speed.

Towards the end I started to lap riders but still not making any progress on closing the gap. As I was passing a group of 4 or 5 riders at the start/finish the officials told us we were done. To say I was disappointed is an understatement, I was still maintaining 24 mph at that point and the likelihood that I was going to get caught by the field was very low. I could still see the back of them, granted I wasn't going to catch them but I wasn't going to be in the way.