Boston Harbor: State Circuit Race

By Galen Erickson,

This year Boston Harbor was a mere 7 laps on the six mile course making it 42 miles. Attending from Gin Optics were Ian, Colin, Dux, Erik and me. We knew it was going to be a fast, hard race so the plan was to follow moves early and save matches for the later moves.
Ian and I would follow this plan for about a half a lap, then start launching attacks like rabid wombats on crack. Our main competition at the race was Herriot sports performance who has been riding well and had put the hurt to us on Saturday. With every attack I was thinking weather they were in there, if they were chasing etc. All other riders seemed somewhat superfluous. So we attacked, followed, hunted our prey.
At five and a half laps to go I got off the front with Stanko, and Feishour. As we were caught Brent Davis from Lenovo attacked. I figured it was a good chance to force Herriott to work so I jumped to bridge (countering my own move). I looked back and sure enough, Tod was chasing me down. But as I powered forward, feeling a little gassed, I wondered if I had done more harm to him or me. As I was caught, Dux appropriately scolded me for riding like an idiot.
We all sat in for a couple of miles with Davis still off the front. Then Herriot attacked with Kyle on his wheel, Ian jumped on it to follow. This would be the strongest move of the day. They quickly put in about 30 seconds. Apparently up in the break, Brent was playing the ‘wanker card’ and not pulling through. So Ian and Todd took turns gapping him off the back then getting back to pulling. Eventually they shed Davis and locked in a powerful rotation.
Back in the pack, a couple riders put in a strong, steady chase for half a lap. Then the chase turned into a number of bridge attempts by Beardsley, Stanko and others. I sat on Richters wheel and rode the train as I watched all the big guns ride themselves into the dirt trying to catch the break. I thought, “Well, I guess it will be me and Richter.” Sure enough, riding up the hill approaching three laps to go, Richter accelerated as his teammate Fleishour let a gap open. I came around Flash and latched onto Richter and that was it, we had a gap. We caught and blew by a wines rider and somebody else, who were messing around off the front, then locked in a steady burn.
The two of us would slowly increase the gap from 30, to 40 then 50 seconds which was the last split I heard before the finish. I let Richter lead out the sprint, hoping to time my jump to come around him. I got schooled. Dave threw up his hands in victory just as a gust of wind blew and almost crashed him out. But he was able to recover. I congratulated Dave on a good race and remembered last year when he and I finished that race on the verge of a fistfight.
Back in the pack Ian and Herriott were shutting down peoples weak attempts at bridging or chasing. Coming into the finish Colin and Dux pulled it all together beautifully to lead Ian out for a crushing pack sprint.
As the group rolled towards me past the finish line I saw Ian throw up three fingers. I threw up a peace sign. We both went home with medallions.