Mike Hagen says:

Hard hard rides Tuesday, and also Wednesday.  Warming up today, my legs were leaden.  Then the start glitched: I was pedaling but my avatar wasn’t moving.  WTF?  Finally got going, but the lead group was out of reach.  But after riding with lrollin and tranberg both races on Tuesday, it was exciting to see them first and second at the halfway split, and the win to Tranberg.  Awesome!  For me, I was in 10th a couple of km after the start, and thinking I’ll just stay there and get a mention.  But Dok_PS was gaining, and eventually caught me.  Full credit to him because I hadn’t waited for him.  Shortly after, Andy_UP, with a great effort, got on with Dok and me. So now I’m wondering how Andy and I can work together to drop Dok?  Maybe we can both get a top 10?  I was going as hard as I could without dropping Andy, and Andy was working his ass off to stay 3 m back.  Every now and then he’d do a pull, and that was really good to let me recover a bit.  Somehow we dropped Dok. Somehow we caught and passed lenb.  With about 4 km to go, we were gaining on rfelix78, only 200 m back.  I decided to go for it; can I catch him?  stranger things have happened.  100 m back with 1 km to go, and 45 m back with 500 m to go, but that’s as close as I got. But 9th for me and 10th for Andy.  Great teamwork, Mucker!

Andy_UP says:

I wasn’t going to race. Well we all know how that ended… Saw a big group in front of me with Neil, about 90m ahaid. I thought, ok, let’s close that gap, and maybe end in top 20. Had to go 4,2w/kg for what seemed endless. Cought up with the group, tried to recover. Saw DonJulio alone about 30m ahaid, so closed that gap. Somehow, he decides to go hard with me in his wheel to close the gap to 2 other riders. Thanks DonJulio! Then he just droped power and he let go. OK? Now the pressure was on my sholders to give his effort justification by ending good. Had a hard time to keep Mike’s wheel and we (he) managed to drop all those with us. Even caught a rider and after a while, he had to let go too, so I was racing for 9th and 10th now! Did a pull to make the gap big enough then kept Mike’s wheel until 1km to go. 10th, a mention and a great team effort. Very fun to be part of this great team!

Tranberg says:

I was first! Don’t know how that was possible after not even finishing in top 20 last Tuesday. But the delayed start gave some extra time, so I actually did a dedicated warm-up for once, and it seemed to do wonders as my numbers were better than ever.

I was a bit surprised to land in the front group after a fast start. And then I cautiously stayed at the back because I was fearing to get dropped as soon as the pace increased. However, I started to be a bit more confident around halfway and started to take some pulls as the group also diminished to just 4 riders. Unfortunately, I could not see Stefan in the group until the very end, so that made group dynamics a bit more challenging. At the end, “nelsonsnyder” was closing in on the front group and were just around 30 m’s behind when “orthostice” made some big attacks to make the last part chaotic and every man for himself. The last 1 km was actually just one long cruel sprint and I still don’t know how I managed to win on that photo-finish. But it was very enjoyable!