Okay, so we completed a successful weekend of racing at Lago Vista, Texas. This small resort area on one of the Highland Lakes has hosted a cycling event for 11 years, and the community seems genuinely interested in tolerating two days per year where a bunch of guys with shaved legs and tight shorts get in the way of traffic while playing with their toys. This past weekend was my second year to participate, and the residents are great - at least the human residents. The deer, I would expect, would take action against the cyclists, if only they had an opposable thumb.

The Lago course is either wonderful or brutal, or wonderful because it is brutal. Day one is a 5.5 mile loop and ay two is a 4.5 mile loop. It is hilly. This year, it was also windy. In fact, for the Cat 3 races, the weather conditions were probably the biggest factor in the race - other than the 12 Mathis Brothers guys that didn't have much of a clue about what they were doing, but were, nonetheless, doing a great job of getting in the way. The first half of the loop was basically up hill, and into the wind. The wind was howling at a constant 20 to 25 with gusts to 40. The second half of the loop was, despite a couple of short and steep climbs, very fast. On one part of the course most racers reached about 50 mph; the heavier guys went faster, and the skinnier guys had to pedal on the downhill to keep up.

The fields were huge. The Cat 5s closed with their USCF imposed 50 racer limit, the Cat 4s had about 90 (?), and the Cat 3s had 97 on Saturday and a few more on Sunday. With the combination of the strength of the pack, the course and the weather conditions, sticking a break was exceedingly difficult. Therefore, the finishes were mostly pack finishes with about 60 guys hurling recklessly at breakneck (and leg, arm, and back) speeds for a piece of tape stretched across the road.

In the 3s, on Saturday, I did my usual thing and spent a bunch of time in, on, or near the front. I managed to get away in one break, but was sitting on the back recovering when the only break that stuck got away. That was okay, though, because we had one guy (Kyle) in it. In the end, REI had 4 (Kyle, Jeromie, Cary and Travis) in the top 15 (and all of us in the top 30); not a bad day. It seems as if the peleton is becoming familiar with our jersey.

On Sunday I meant to play a bit smarter, but I'm not sure I did. I spent one lap solo trying to bridge to a break that I'd missed, while the peleton tried to bridge to me. That left me in no-man's land, spending a lot energy for naught. However, it did allow me to easily score a feed from Conrad in the feed zone. The weather was both more kind and more relentless to us on Sunday. The wind was significantly more calm, but still enough of a factor to keep things together on the hilly section. However, near the end of the race, it started to rain. The streets were slick, very slick, and the group was huge. The 50 mph descent on wet roads with 80 guys around me, and deer peeking from the sidelines, was the single most significant factor of my average heart-rate for the day. Somehow, there were no crashes - there were some close calls (one guy got pinched into the median on a climb, and I narrowly avoided a collision with a tree that had jumped into the middle of the road from nowhere), but no significant mishaps.

The sprint was another free-for-all, but I had a great line. I'd hit my 53/12 on the big 50 mph descent, stayed in it on the climb, and then just never had a chance to change my hand position enough to change that gear. The roads were too wet and we were going too fast in a huge group (that is, of course really antsy so close to the finish). So, I "sprinted" through the finish, including up the finish-line hill, in my 53/12. Whatever, it worked out okay ... this time. Again, REI put 4 (Kyle, Cary, me, and Travis) in the top 15. Again, not a bad day.

As for the other category races, REI had some remarkable finishes. For example, Victor Coots got 2nd in the 5s on Sunday, and John Leader got 3rd in the 4s on Sunday. Others also did well, but I can't remember their placing. I think REI had a total of 7 or 8 top ten finishes in all categories combined and only three of those were from the Cat 3s (which demonstrates that our real notoriety is coming from our Cat 5s and 4s).

This event was really a lot of fun. So far the TXBRA racing season has been awesome. The officials have done an excellent job, the courses have been challenging, and the field sizes have been huge making the competition great.