After hearing really positive things about Half new race series in Calumet Park I decided to ride down to check it out. All I had been hearing was good vibes, good organization and a solid course. Turned out to be all true.
It felt weird to be back on the starting line again after so long, but there were tons of familiar faces and good vibes. The race started with an inauspicious clip-in, but nothing disastrous. The pack settled in and everyone seemed pretty content to ride easily. There were some probing attacks (mine included), but no one was excited to be in a break with 20 laps to go.
Pretty soon I was ready to try and get up the road, but nothing seemed to be really working. Tati had a huge turnout and was shutting down anything that didn't have one of their own in it (annoyed me then, but obviously makes sense). I decided to sit in the pack and talk to the guys I thought would be good break-mates to try and orchestrate something. I found Liam of Tati and Adam of Team Beer'd who I knew were interested and strong. I played a little field marshal and convinced them that we would be strong and stay away (especially since Tati would be working for us instead of against us). They didn't need much convincing and on the back straightaway I attacked and magically only those two came with me and we got a gap. Couldn't have been more perfect--away with 5 laps to go and a strong break. I took a really hard first pull to establish the gap and then proceeded to ensure that we stayed organized, which we did.
We worked really well together--taking short, hard pulls, but there were a couple of bridge attempts that we didn't want to see succeed. On one of the accelerations to keep the chasers away we lost Adam, which seemed like the end of the break as the pack was clearly getting ready to bring us back. So with two to go we redoubled our efforts and put in some hard efforts to stay away. Finally half way through the last lap the pack is surging and Liam and I start really killing it. I attacked just short of the final corner with about 400 meters to go and managed to get a gap that held him and the surging field off. First win of 2009!
As a postscript I'd like to say that Half Acre did a wonderful job organizing and executing the race. The course was well-marshaled, registration was simple and results were posted almost immediately. They have definitely filled a huge void by producing this series and deserve a lot of credit.