Saturday

Ok, so I was looking forward to the race on Sunday. First I needed to get through the criterium on Saturday and help out my team as much as possible to get some good results. The field was stacked with some bigger teams and bigger names, such as Chris Horner and Freddie Rodrigues. Which meant the race would be fast. I job was to sit in until the latter part of the race and then get Victor to the front and hopefully get him the win. So, I planned to sit towards the back for the first 15 laps of a 50 lap race. Then a small group went away with one of my team mates (Adrian the Steam Train Garrets). Along the Alessandro Borajo Chris Horner, Ben Jaque-Maynes amung some others. The break stuck and still we had a chance to get Victor in the top ten so I went to the front with Edgar and tried to do my job. In the firtst few laps I was getting it done, then I got chopped in one of the corners and lost too many spots. On the last lap I was sitting just right to get a top twenty spot and Edgar was in control with Victor then a guy took himself, me and a bunch of other riders out into one of the metal barriers. Once everything came to a stop I thought yes!, there is not real pain except for the fact that my leg is jammed between a handlebar and the brake lever. Then I looked in the direction of my bike and thought man how did my front wheel come off? Then I focused a little more and noticed my front fork was broken. the next thought was I guess i dont get to race tomorrow. A little upset I walked to the EMT to get my knee cleaned up and head back to the car. Luckly the Shimano Neutral Support allowd me to borrow a bike for the next days race.
So the next day I was able to set some of the team up and get a little publicity for Shimano/Litespeed by going on a 40mile solo breakaway getting upwards of 4 minutes on the field until they became very motivated to bring me back. Which in turn set some of our riders up for a counter attack and a chance for the win. After our guys were off in the break and definitely not coming back I tired to roll with some other groups and get into the a higher placing for the team. These did not work, because for some reason the peleton was not going to let another group roll of that day. So in the end Markus was 7th and Jorge was 14th.