To be honest, I have never raced for anyone else. Every race I have done thus far the sole purpose of my racing was to try and coming out with the win, so when Dylan expressed his desire to win this race near where he goes to college I was excited to spend a day pulling and trying to hurt the field without any real pressure. 

After embrocating, putting bikes together and looking nervous it was time to roll out. Right away Dylan and I were up front and decided to see if we could get rid of some people. The feild was small about 20 guys at the start but after 4 miles of the 26-29MPH pace Dylan and I put down we had it down to 8 people before the first climb.

We let a couple guys jump up the big hill on their own. Dylan is a absolute monster when the road is flat or downhill and I figured with 3 guys working we would have no problem picking up whatever got away from us.  

When we regrouped with what we thought was our leaders we learned that someone the other guy had gone off alone. Again, no need to panic, we now had 4 guys and he was one man out alone with 40MPH wind gusts on the course. One laps to go and we learn out lead man is over a mile ahead, and with 12 miles left to go this becomes a race for 2nd place. It was me, Dylan, Jayson and a random little 125 pound climber in the group and he knew he needed to do something special on the climb to keep us off on the decent. 

He hit it, I stayed with the boys and paced them up the hill with enough gas in the tank to chase. I looked back at the top of the climb to find Jayson’s bike weaving a bit and his head down, “Jayson is done Dylan, let’s go”. And go we did. 

Heads down and bikes swerving in the wind we chased the little fucker who had climbed out of view. With a mile to go I saw the 2nd placed rider on the road and with Dylan on my wheel buried myself. I just keep asking my body, “just a little more, just a little more” but coming around the corner with 300 meters to go I knew we were not catching him so I sat up, put my arm around my brother, told him he rode a good race and watched him roll into a well deserved 3rd place. 

It happens that way sometimes doesn’t it? You want something so bad, you put in the work and it does not totally come through. It does happen. I think in the end it builds more character than winning, the coming close to a goal. He will win a race soon and I will hopefully be a few wheels back to raise my arms when he does. 

** Big thanks to Mama Nord and Kathy for hanging out of the rental car to get these shots **