Coldspring Road Race

Coldspring Road Race is a classic, late-spring Texas race. Since we've gotten rain in the last weeks, the hills were green, as well as rolling, and the tall, east Texas pines were looking particularly fresh.

We had 22 or so women on roll out in the women's race, 3 from San Jose, 4 from Brain & Spine, and pairs from Moritz, Bikesport, and a few other teams, joined by the local Veloforma gal & Daniele from the Austin Flyers.

The race would total 46 miles, completed over 3 laps of the course. The finishing hill is somewhat infamous, as it's always longer than it looks! The first lap was uneventful, except for some late attacks on the final hills, which shed some riders and brought our group down to 15 riders.

As the muggy heat of the day set in, everyone started looking for feeds on the 2nd lap- Rachel & Jen got feeds from Wes, and I just succeeded in throwing down my water bottle. Darn! Having team mates is helpful, though- they allowed me to share from theirs, thank goodness!

Coming in on the last lap, attacks started to get more frequent and more serious. Michelle from Moritz attacked a couple of times, and I followed, so we would not be in the position of chasing. Shortly after getting reeled back in the 2nd time, Rheannon from B&S attacked, and Jen closed that gap. Then Christina from Veloforma went with 2 K to go- I hopped on her wheel, and she put her head down to open a gap from the pack. We got a little ways, and then she realizes I'm sitting on her, so she starts trying to flick me off her wheel- in the midst of this, the pack is gaining ground, and we're reeled back in. About 1K out, she attacks again, and again I'm on her wheel. I'm feeling the earlier efforts, and know this is my last bit of energy, so I look back to be sure Jen is on my wheel. Right at the base of the climb, about 400 meters, I know I'm about to blow, so I give my last little oomph, and give a last push for Jen to come around. She does, and it is soooo far out! I wished we could have gotten her close to the line, because it is a LONG uphill sprint. But Jen is a beast- she comes around, and holds everyone off by lengths. Hooray for team work! Rachel finishes 9th, and I wobble in for 14th. Great race, great team work, and great results.