This past weekend, Ben Gramling and I headed down to the Texas Hill Country for the 29th Annual La Primavera Lago Vista in search of some hard racing in warm weather. The weekend features a pair of 80-mile road races over 15 laps of a five mile course. This was the first time at the race for Ben and me. After dropping out of Crosswinds last weekend less than 30 minutes into the race, I was eager to get my season back on track.
Day 1
On Saturday the race runs clockwise, with a long slight uphill to start the lap followed by a fast descent back toward the finish. I tried to be active early and find a breakaway, but nothing would stay away. On the third lap I felt my rear tire go flat about halfway down the descent. I pulled off and got a wheel from neutral support. Unfortunately the combination of a wheel that didn’t quite fit with my bike and some panic on my part led to me being stopped for 59 seconds. I took off again in pursuit of the peloton, but chances were slim that I would be able to rejoin them. Had I flatted on another part of the course it may have been a different story, but to have to come to a complete stop on the fastest part of the course is a recipe for disaster.
I chased for three laps, with the gap to the main field ballooning from two minutes, to two and a half minutes to almost four minutes when I decided to give up the chase and save the legs for day two. Eventually the wind blowing in off of Lake Travis helped split the race into several groups, with Lucas Bourgoyne (Elevate KHS) taking the win and the leader’s jersey.
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Day 2
The second day features a more challenging course as the race goes the opposite direction. After a series of short, steep hills, it turns to head back toward the finish line with a long gradual downhill into a cross-headwind. Not many in the race were interested in pushing the pace the first time up the climbs, so Ben took the opportunity to sneak off the front and get an early breakaway going. On the second and third laps, several attacks brought the race back together. The next few laps saw some riders struggle to keep up with the peloton, but nothing much happening at the front.
About halfway through the race, some riders went off the front to establish a five-man breakaway, but most of the marked riders were still in the peloton. A few laps later, Lucas Bourgoyne put in a monster attack toward the top of the climb. I was right on his wheel and was initially able to follow him but couldn’t sustain the effort needed to make it into the break. Colin Strickland (Meteor), Stefan Rothe (Elbowz), and Evan Bausbacher (Gateway) joined him to create a four-man chase group, and I found myself in a group of about 15 riders who couldn’t quite follow the acceleration.
After a few laps, the two groups in front joined, and it became clear that we were never going to catch them. The cooperation among the riders began to break down as only a few were willing to do the work, while others were putting in attacks on the climbs that weren’t quite hard enough to do anything except make people mad. We caught a rider who had been dropped from the lead group and were now racing for ninth.
With just over a lap to go I decided to take a chance at going solo. I attacked on the down hill section as the group slowed, and got into the super-tuck to increase my gap. I had opened a small gap on the group as we got the bell for one lap to go. Being alone, I was able to ride a hard, but steady pace up the climbs as I caught Zach Stein (Elbowz) who had also been dropped by the leaders. He didn’t have much left though, so I was forced to continue to do the work to stay away. I pulled him to the finish knowing he would probably out-sprint me, but that was a better option than messing around and letting seven riders catch back up to us. I didn’t have much to give in the final sprint and had to settle for ninth place. After a tough day of racing I was happy to finally finish a race this season, and to finish in the top 10 against a strong field definitely made the trip worth it.
Andrew Evans 