USGP Mercer Cup Day 2 and recap

Day 2 began with me feeling quite a bit less sick than when I went to bed, but not generally feeling too fresh. This is typical for the second day of a double weekend, and with running around the pits and such a bit of extra fatigue was expected. The plan was largely the same for Sunday as I was racing at the same time - a stop for coffee and a breakfast bagel, sign on for the day, warm up, race, then work the pits and spectate. The course had been changed a little, with some sections cut out, some new turns added and a few sections run parallel to the previous course. Still, a lot was the same and there would be many sections that would be a muddy slow grind. Luckily I had a pit bike care of Marc Boudreau (and pedals for it c/o Natasha Elliott) so I was not as worried about the mud as just a tough second day of racing.

The weather took a considerable turn in the warm and sunny direction, so I was able to warm up in shorts and a jersey. I spun up and down the road through the park and did a few starts and hard efforts. I got to staging a bit earlier and got into place with my callup - 2 places better than the day before (i.e. same spot, basically). It turns out the guy beside me was 5th on Saturday and wasn't too happy that they didn't award any callup priority based on results from the previous day. I can't say I disagree with him. The whistle came up pretty fast, and we were off. I didn't really have a bad start, but I also didn't move up much at all so I basically hit the grass in about 50th or so. That was fine, because I found I moved up a lot easier on the grass than on the start Saturday. This did work, and on the hairpin bottleneck that everyone ran I got through quickly and gained probably 10 spots. I rode myself up another 5 or 10, easily into territory I could not sustain (top 30). As soon as we hit the flats I started falling back, and probably hit about 50th again - back where I belonged(?)

This was fine, but I felt like I was really just out for a ride and not really racing. My heart rate was not up and I couldn't get motivated to get going since my legs were still working hard to push through the mud. I pitted after 1 lap to get on a bike without so much mud, but right away the bike all over the place in the rear. I figured I just wasn't used to Marc's bike and the other tires weren't quite as good in the mud, but once I hit a less muddy section it became apparent that there was little to no air in my rear tire. Since it was my own tire, I decided to risk riding it out, trying to keep the weight over the front and limped into the pits. I think this is probably where I lost the rest of my places, only a handful of which I'd get back in the end. Rode into the pits and got my bike back, and was off. A lap later I pitted again and got the bike with the same rear wheel so I figure they must have got it to hold air. Ran most of the off camber by the expo this time and then pitted again to finish the race on my bike. With the bell lap upon me, for some reason my body decided to start racing and I was picking off a few guys here and there. Maybe got 1/3 of the spots I lost riding the flat to roll in for 63rd, 12 worse than Saturday, feeling like I hadn't really done much.

It turns out my 'flat' was the result of the valve being open or something like that, because the tire held air after that and appears to be fine. Thank goodness for tubulars. The same event on a clincher would have been a DNF because I was not running half a lap, and there's no way you can ride a clincher flat like that.

As for the rest of my day, I helped Alex out in the pits a bit and then got Jared's bike ready to pit for him in the Elite race. Watched the Elite Women go, and by now things were considerably drier and faster. Katerina Nash put on a good show, dropping Dombrowski to take another win. On to the men, I was pitting for Jared but it was clear from the Women's race that there would not be much action there unless there was a mechanical. Bikes were coming in clean and the course was only drying up. The pit was actually a good vantage point to watch from when it wasn't busy, so I got to watch Tim Johnson put in a huge effort halfway through lap 1 to drop everyone and solo away to victory. The battle for the rest of the top 5 was quite interesting with Trebon, Wells, Kabush and Driscoll swapping spots a few times and working on gapping each other before the finish. The remainder of the top 15 was a good show as well with DSJ riding himself into 11th for the next best Canadian showing behind Kabush.

The drive home was long and we had quite a hard time getting propane for the van after 2 am. We ended up making it into Toronto at the very end of our range and finding some fuel. It's amazing how many truck stops were either out of propane or had no staff on hand at night who were licensed to pump it. It was 6 before we got to Waterloo, barely able to stay awake and having to work just hours later. I got an hour of sleep and showered before heading to work. Needless to say, it was a long couple of days. I'll be resting up again this week, as at this point in the season I'm pretty much coasting on what fitness I have and trying to hold on to my form for a couple more weeks. The last few races should be very fun and largely low-key, though it should still be some good racing.