First, a rant. I don't understand why people show up to local bike races to let a group of guys roll off the front, and then not do any work to help bring them back, despite not having any teammates in the group. Why show up? I'm not saying that I can go win every local race, and I'll be the first to admit that I have pack-fill-status (or, more accurately, filling the space between the back of the field and the front, but not in the good way) myself at a lot of races, so I also understand that sometimes you just aren't strong enough to make an effort, but either animate the race or go to the back. People are so afraid to do work, but they want the result. By sitting in and saving themselves, they can sprint (for not-first-place?)! Unfortunately that also means they never push their capacities, thus never improve, thus never win. Oh well. Save your casual conversations for the group ride, stop staring at your powermeter afraid you might do work, and race your bike. It's fun. 

So now that I got that out of the way, after a delightful four hours of tempo riding on Friday, I headed over to Des Plaines, IL on Saturday for the ABR Tour de Villas. It was a one mile oval. The race started and no one was going very fast, so I attacked and ended up solo for the first two laps before getting caught and reintegrating. Then no one was going very fast again. Eventually some guys rolled off the front, but no one was going very fast, so they opened a small gap. They sat about eight or nine seconds in front of us for a while. No one wanted to pull. I tried to bridge. Suddenly everyone wanted to pull. I went back to the field. A guy from Team Helen's was pulling everyone around and berating them for being little girls. Bored and realizing the futility of my situation, I decided I would take some pulls. I took a few hard pulls, but every time I would flick my elbow for someone to pull through, the field would be a bike length behind me. I gave up and we kept riding around pretty leisurely until two to go. "Two to go, well that means I'm going to finish, so time to go fast for a minute!" With three quarters of a lap to go, we had slowed down again, and I leisurely coasted to the front. Everyone must have wanted to launch their sprint from 15mph. I was annoyed again, so I put it in a big-ish gear and just started pedaling hard seated. I opened a gap, but ended up getting caught about 75m from the line. In the end, it's my fault for not being in the winning move, and sometimes, that's just how bike racing (or, in this case, bike sitting in and not doing anything) goes. 

4th of July weekend was relaxing. I spent Sunday and Monday in Michigan lounging around eating things that are bad for me and laying on the beach in preparation for a little superweek action this coming week, because there is no better preparation for superweek than putting yourself in a weeklong sugar and fat induced coma. 'merica. Hell yeah. 

Things I've learned lately: those little strips of tar that are used to patch roads in the midwest get very very hot in the summer, then they melt, then when you run over them you get a sweet wobble and near-crash. Either that, or I need new tires. Someone also told me Saturday that I reminded them of Chad Hartley, which is a nice change from being told I look like Tyler Hamilton (although I insist it's he who looks like me, but uglier and with more red blood cells), but I'm still not sure if either is a compliment.