The story needs to be told!

the setup:
Only 4 teams qualify for nationals this year and we're sitting 4th, 40 points behind SLO (in 2nd), 1! point behind stanford and 64 points ahead of 5th place santa barbara. Keep in mind this is out of nearly 900! This is the closest race in years, and we're right on the edge.

Here's the rub: We changed the rules this year to make conference even MORE important. At these three races, all points are multiplied by 3x--individual points, and team points. In other words the first place team for each event normally gets 100points, 2nd gets 86 -- a 14 point differential. NOW, everything gets tripled-- 14 point differential becomes 42. Between 2nd and 3rd is 36 points, 3rd and 4th is also 36. 4th and 5th is 30.

Basically everything comes down to conference. Every event is do or die for everyone (except maybe davis. who has it in the bag and they know it).

Stage 1: TTT --

We finagle Hanns into agreeging to let Lucy ride with Courtney in the WA TTT. This gives us a chance. They probably won't win, but we need all the points we can get.

Me, Alex, Dave, and Hippo storm the TTT. We had to wait once but other then that I would call it virtually flawless. I was feeling invincible and alex looked streamlined like a diving seal, or maybe a sea lion. Dave and Hippo were struggling on the hills but were a great asset in the headwind on the way back. In the end the best we could do was 3rd-- out of 35 min, we were 2.5 min behind Mach, I mean davis, and 47 seconds behind stanford. Not sure where stanford got it--I thought they were ours for the taking for sure. I'm going to have to see the results posted to put this together for sure, but I think the SB men somehow got 4th.

In the women, SB beat davis. Un-freaking-believable. They got 2nd to stanford. But because of the rediculous 3x points rule, 2nd place is HUGE! Courtney and Lucy came in for 5th I believe, but 2nd and 4th beats 3rd and 5th.

SB get's 3rd and we get 5th, a 66 point differential and now we trail by 2!!! points in 5th place. TTing is our strength and SB rose up and squashed us.

Stage 2: RR --


All of us line up with a 84 mile race and 20 miles of gravel laid out before us. Tension is high. We know Nick Martinez is incapable of finishing a long race and the advantage is definitely ours.
Here's how we play the equipment: myself, alex, john and joe go conservative--alloy wheels with tough tires (rubino pro's for alex and john, I have bonty AC's, joe likes to ride slowly with conti's). Hippo uses john's carbon and a vittoria evo cx in the rear. Aggressive, but faster--if he gets a flat there's still 4 of us to finish.

Hippo gets in an early break with davis and stanford. Perfect! The rest of the field sits up and they pull off into the distance.

The course was super-windy and after a steep turn Mach shoves the field into the gutter in a side wind. Good thinking, but it could have been so much more. He had his whole team up there. All they would have needed to do was eschelon and the rest of us would have been TOAST. DONE. But no, he just tried to drop everyone solo. The thing is, he CAN drop everyone solo--I've seen it. So maybe he was just f'ing around.

Then we hit the gravel. Awesome yet insane all at the same time. Rocks were flying everywhere. People were fishtailing, yelling, and hammering. But the insanity increased even more on the last section. With about 1.5 miles to go in the gravel, we hit a section that was newly re-graveled. You couldn't even see wheel tracks! Deep 2 inch big pieces of gravel just detonated the field. People were flatting left and right. All of a sudden I start to fishtail bad and I'm having trouble holding the wheel. No biggie, I can see the end right up again. Then I feel my rim. Game over. Pinch flat.

I had a flashback to nats 2 years ago. I get off my bike, quickly take of the rear wheel, only to see 4-5 people down the road all with a wheel in their hand. *siiiiiiiiiigh*. John and Hippo come by right away and hippo offers a wheel, but I tell him no because I can see the wheel scooter coming right up. This "neutral" wheel scooter comes by in about a minute and tells me to take a hike and get one from the car. So much for neutral. A few minutes later the first follow car comes by. They spend a minute digging around for a UCLA wheel I KNOW is there but by this point I'm pretty deflated and don't care. After another minute they are like "ooooooooh... we probably moved it to the OTHER car...". At this point I'm ready to throw my wheel at them. A minute later the "other" car comes up and gives me a wheel. The field is like 7 min up the road and I'm not in the mood to race anymore. In retrospect I should have kept going (as I will explain), but I was assured a low place finish and most likely 3 of the 4 guys up the road would still finish making it irrelevant (only top-3 score).

In the end, Hippo pinch flats and there's no wheel for him (my fault, I should have tried to get another in the follow, but it would have been hard to do it in time). Alex gets crashed out in the cross wind section and hurts his knee. John has intestinal issues and was hurting bad and pulled out. Joe shows a lot of heart and finishes the damn race, largely solo. Nick doesn't finish as predicted, but Katz and the other SB do! damnit!

Courtney does as good as she possibly can and despite nearly being taken out in the sprint, wins the race.

Who won between us and SB? neither. We TIED!

How could we have possibly predicted that a WIN and a 18TH place EXACTLY tied the smattering of places SB got. A tie. Out of 250-odd points! Had any of us finished--just finished! would have beaten them in the event. Unbelievable. UnREAL!

So now, the setup for the crit: we still trail SB by 2 points out of almost 1100 for 4th and 5th place. It's all come down to the crit. We've never beaten SB in a crit all year. It's game time.

Stage 3: Crit

This was a beautiful L-shaped course. It's wide even despite the cars they failed to have towed and just stacked hay bails in front of them (lame). But it turned out to be safe anyway and actually pretty fun.

Here's the plan: we can't beat Nick straight up in a crit. Basically no one can in the WCCC. But at the same time, we need to amass as many points as possible to overcome the SB women's high placings (they got 2nd and 5th I think, to courney's 4th). So we're way in the hole. The only way we can beat Nick is in a breakaway, so John and I are to mark the early breaks and alex starts about 10-20 min in. Hippo and Joe wait for the sprint. Stack the top 10. It's all we can do. Crush it.

It's hot from the gun and I kill myself to get to the front as fast as I possibly can. I get there easy and realize I'm on a great day. There is no chain and the corners are effortless. Anything with Davis in I respond to. Again and again I go. Bridging is easy. The first move I was in was caught after a couple laps. About 15 min in Mach goes again and I shoot off the front.

I kill myself for a while with Mach and look around to see who's left. It's me, Mach, L. Binder, Philipp, aaaaaand NICK. Damnit. Now what? Do I want this break to succeed? Nick's going to kill us for sure in the end. Soooo, better not be with him in the end. As far as I could tell his training hasn't been perfect in the last few weeks and stamina was his issue so in my mind, tiring him out in the break was the best chance. Maybe he'll be beatable in the end, if he's had to work for 40 min. Plus I was feeling amazing--best to try to sprint against him among 5 people then among the whole field. So there it is--I have to beat nick and hopefully the guys back in the field can stack the top 10--I've essentially neutralized nick as best I can.

So everyone works well until about 12 min to go. Mach decides he's had enough of us, guns it (from the front), and drops everyone. We regroup. Philipp and Lucas are working for their individual omnium places--all they want is the break to succeed, and yell at nick and I to keep working. Meanwhile nick and I are playing bullshit riding games. Every other time he pulls, I attack. He does similar things to me and it's upsetting Lucas and Philipp who are thinking about catching Mach. Nick can't drop me and I can't drop him. Damn. And there's no way we're catching Mach.

Going into the last lap, I'm on the front. When I pull off around turn one, nick attacks. Ah HA! Too early! What's he going to do, lead the whole last lap and win (for second)? Yeah, actually he is. I can see why he wins so many crits. I grind back to his wheel with 1/2 the lap to go thinking I've got him--he can't possibly go again--I'll come around him. Sure enough around the final turn he burns me in the final straightaway. Hard as I could go, directly in the slipstream for 1/2 a lap, and I couldn't even begin to come around him.

But, I still get 3rd! If the rest of the guys can smoke the other SB guys then maybe we have a shot.

Alex flys around the last corner in first place and WINS the field sprint! Holy Crap! But, I don't see anyone else.

SB got: 2-2-5-?
we got: 3-4-6-?

shit. Our best crit all year. Big crouds and a big result, but not quite enough. At least we didn't go down without a fight.

In the end we missed out of the nats bid by ~30 points out of 1300. Unreal. So many little things could have made the difference, but I'm trying not to dwell on them.