"The Bump" Winter Circuit

Livermore, CA / February 3rd, 2019 / Cat. 2/3

(C) Greg Beliera Photography

"The Bump" is a race known for it's steep, short finish. I headed up to Livermore to get some pre-season road racing in the legs before heading to Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Arizona, and was looking to get some good efforts in the legs before then. Unfortunately, with some mechanical issues before the start of the race regarding my rear derailleur, I was only able to fit in a mere 10 minute or less warm up, which is far from my preferred warm up of 30 minutes to an hour. Regardless, I headed up to the start line just as the rain started to fall.

The first few minutes of the race were neutral, but then the moto pulled off and everyone picked up the pace going up the climb. I struggle a lot when I am faced with headwind, as it has never been my strength. The unfortunate thing is that I am a climber, but there was an extremely fierce headwind up the entire climb, so the group was tougher to separate. The first lap downhill was very fast and we reached speeds upwards of 45 miles an hour, which was very hard to sustain in a tailwind with junior gears on.

The first couple laps entailed a couple small breaks in the field, including a solo break by my teammate Aidan McNiel. However, every move that went was very quickly brought back and nothing was a large threat to the main pack. With one lap to go, our pack hit the climb super hard, and many people were getting dropped and opening up gaps. Due to some positioning mistakes on my part during the last lap, I got stuck behind a pack that opened up a gap.

I went around the racers and put in an effort as hard as I could to catch back up to the front group, but I was unable to pull it off. My teammate Alex Akins bridged up to me along with a few others, and we rolled to the finish line together, were I took 22nd on the day.