April 24th, 2010
69 miles
3rd place - Josh Dillon
http://www.bikereg.com/Results/2010/04/24-Turtle-Pond-Circuit-Race.asp
The team has a good track record at this race with a couple of wins, including one year when we had 5 or 6 in the top 10. So morale was pretty high going in...but the erupting volcano in Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull, dished up a good European thumping of the Americans at Turtle Pond 2010. While the volcano itself did not drift any ash onto Loudon, New Hampshire, it did close many European airports and forced some of our competition from the Battenkill UCI race the weekend before to spend an extra week in the states. And since you can't tell a racer not to race, the mostly English boys of Rapha Condor Sharp professional cycling team decided to try their luck at a New England race. And it turns out "old" England prevailed...by quite a bit. Maybe they are still a little irked at some previous New England residents wasting all of that perfectly good tea over 200 years ago. But whatever the reason, they let us have it. Bad. The only bright spot (maybe) is that i broke up a sweep of the podium...actually they would have been 1st through 7th had i not stolen 3rd place. On the backside of the first lap i covered a strong move from a Rapha rider (of course) to open a gap to the field, we were quickly joined by Justin Spinelli and another Rapha rider and the 4 of us went to work. At the beginning of the last lap (out of 6) i was definitely thinking about the win when they tried to attack and i could easily cover it. Probably should have countered at that time because halfway through the last lap the four of us were joined by another 2 Rapha riders. And the attacks started. This shed Justin and I was left to contend with 4 Rapha riders on my own with about 5 miles remaining. So when the next Rapha rider attacked I responded slowly to keep him out in front of us while i "slowly" brought him back (i should note that it was really hard just to keep the distance steady). This kept the other 2 at bay as they waited to counter (1 of the early breakaway riders was dropped). I waited for the fast run in to the finish to finally close the gap hoping the speeds would be too high for the others to get a good jump on me...but i was wrong. The two riders who bridged on the last lap had more pop and i couldn't contain them. Given the odds, to walk away with 3rd was OK though.
