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Snake Alley
By Bryan Moritz
 It was the Snake Alley Crit down in Burlington, Iowa. All season I've set this as "the race" that I wanted to win. Coming into the race though I didn't know quite what to expect because I haven't been racing in Iowa much this season so I didn't know the faces of the guys to watch for. All I knew was that Thad had been racing strong as of late and that I should jump on his wheel for the first lap to follow him through the downhill turns to find the line that he took. So right off the start Thad jumps up to the front with me on his wheel sitting 3rd overall for the first time up the snake. Then on the second time up I lead the pack and got a small gap but knew it wouldn't stick. When the pack caught me guys didn't really seem to want to keep pushing the pace and I noticed guys were catching back on. So we raised the pace again and things really strung out. I was feeling good but somehow two Iowa City guys got off the front. One was a kid named Adam Price (I've seen his name in the top of the results around Iowa this year and was told before hand that he would be one to watch), the other was Andy Leuck (I know him from cross racing and knew he was one to watch too). I also think John Eppen got up there somehow too. John dropped off and I was sitting alone in 4th and caught him after a couple laps and was able to get around him without him sitting on my wheel. Then I was left to try to catch the 1st/2nd place guys up the road about a block. I was gaining ground on the downhill and the first part of the hill, but towards the end of the snake they would always pull away. For some reason Adam Price dropped off Andy's wheel and let a gap open up. Probably so that if I caught him, then he would sit on my wheel if I were to also catch Andy. I finally caught Adam with about 2 laps to go and he just sat on my wheel. So I didn't keep up the effort knowing that if I did catch Andy, Adam would just jump around me and go. Coming across the line with one lap to go I knew I was racing for 2nd place because Andy had a little less than a block on me. Coming around the corner to the first little hill, I saw an Iowa City guy walking his bike. I thought for a second and then realized it was Andy and I was officially racing for first. Going up the Snake I was pushing it pretty hard but Adam stuck to my wheel. So once we got to the top I was going to just try to reserve going down to the finish to hopefully take the sprint. But going through all the turns downhill, I started to get a gap on Adam. So I laid it all out going downhill knowing this was my chance. I rounded the final corner with the finish in sight and about a half block ahead of Adam knowing that I had completed my goal for the season!!!!!!!! It was such a SWEET feeling to win that race! I remember doing that race a couple years ago and taking 9th overall and feeling good about that, but this was AWESOME. Also, Derrek Cassaday from DICE took 6th overall!!!!! He road an AWESOME race especially considering what he's gone through this spring. He was riding REALLY strong over spring break but when he went back to school he was riding one day and was hit by a car and was off the bike recovering from his injuries for about 2 weeks so that really set him back. I would have loved to see what he would have gotten if that hadn't happened to him. Yesterday was the Wapello-Burlington Road Race. It was 33 miles and was mainly head/side winds. Before hand I saw Brandon there and he wanted to try to get a break going. So early on he attack and I bridged up and we tried to get something going but knowing it was still early on we didn't push it hard. Two guys got up to us and wanted to keep going but they didn't seem to work to well so we were eventually back in the pack. I attacked a couple other times but nothing ever worked. The rest of the race I sat in the back of the pack. With about 5 or so miles to go I finally made my way back up to the front and tried to help set pace because some guy was way off the front. We finally caught him with about 2 or 3 miles left. Once we hit the four lane road DICE made our way up to the front and had a train going at the bottom of the hill. Pete was on the front with Greg following and Bruce going for the sprint. I sat on Bruce's side to help block the wind that was coming from the side. Unfortunately our train wasn't good enough and the top DICE finish was 14th (15 made money so I guess that was good). However, in the cat 5 road race, Jeff "Hammer" Abel sprinted for a close 2nd overall and Dave Housler took 5th!!!!! So far this weekend DICE has had some AWESOME results. Tomorrow is the Melon City Crit and Monday is the QC Crit. Hopefully DICE can pull out some more podium results tomorrow and Monday. So until then... ...I'm OUT! |
