The weather started out warm and humid and just kept getting warmer throughout the day - I was happy I was only riding the 70km route and not the full 130km as I initially thought about. The start itself was interesting as both the 130km riders and the 70km riders started together; this mix would be a huge help for me. I mad sure to get to the start line nice and so I could line up with some of the very fast 130km riders with hopes of hanging with them for the first 40km until our routes parted ways.
So after listening to a number of speeches we were off with a nearly 500 rider peloton riding together for a "neutral roll-out" (a very fast and not so neutral roll-out) out of Waterloo. I managed to stay relatively close to the front of this group. I worked hard to stick with my plan of riding behind some very fast riders but, unfortunately, when we got to the short but steep hills of Weimer line the peleton split and I was on the wrong side. I rode past a pile of riders and I tried a number of times to bridge back to the lead group but it wasn't going to happen.
I quickly found a nice group of riders all willing to do a little work and we managed to maintain a nice high pace of 36-38km/h. We picked up many riders along the way that were consistently getting dropped from the lead group and soon we had a very large group of riders on the road. At this point our group picked up Brent and I got to talk with him for just a few minutes as not long after this we were ready to split up the 130km riders and the 70km riders.
After the split I was in a group of nearly 20 riders and I did my best to make sure we kept the pace nice and high so no one else would catch onto our group. With this pace we ended up losing a few along the way and ended up with 10 riders when we hit the Hawkesville Hill. I felt pretty good climbing the hill but still was near the back of our group when we got over the hill which was a bad place to be as we were turning into a headwind immediately after the climb and would continue into this until we were back in Waterloo. Four of our strongest had managed a decent gap on the rest of us and I knew that I would have no chance if I didn't catch up to that group of four. So I put in a big effort and pulled myself back up to the group of four nut also pulled a number of others along with me.
We now had a solid group of 8 riders which worked hard together to the finish. With 1km left to go there is a small little kicker left which one rider used to attack our group and three others managed to tag onto. I put in my best effort to catch those riders but was not strong enough to do it alone and missed catching them by a few seconds.
From the start of the race I suspected that there would be a number of 70km riders in the fastest peloton on the road and it turns out there was a group of about 12 riders that pulled in about 6 minutes before our group. Overall I got 18th place and was 4th in my age category. I couldn't have asked for a better race or conditions.
Can't wait for next year!