This weekend held the final race of the GA Cup series.  Steve Walker was looking for 4 series points to move from a tie for 7th to 5th in the final season series overall standings.

While I haven’t talked to him, Reggie Pineda raced the criterium on Saturday’s crit and scored a nice top 10 finish on his own.

Duanne Fossyl joined Steve at the road race having recovered from racing every race of the Gwinnett BikeFest a week prior.  Duanne played the team card perfectly by being present in any late breakaway allowing Steve to maintain his spot near the front.  Aarons upped the pace after Gotsick flatted out of the 3-man break with 5 miles left just as 2 chasers joined.  It was to no avail as the 4 finished just ahead of the pack.  Steve and Duanne both sat in the top 10 after bombing the final decent and starting the last uphill one mile drag to the line.  Duanne was forced into the wind too early while Steve luckily found a wheel to follow through a hole and sprinted home in 8th as the 4th elite finisher.

(Aarons sweeps final overall podium)

Final Season Series Overall:  Aarons teammates Adam Handler, Nate Sibly, and James Gotsick negotiated a three-way tie for the series win.  It’s a great accomplishment for a strong team.  John Atkins held onto 4th thanks to his dominating performance in Gainesville.  Our rough count has Steve Walker successfully moving into 5th overall.  A great result for Nouveau Velo!

There were so many races over the past week that they blur together.  It doesn’t help that I was out of town so I don’t have each individual race break-down.  I think all will agree that every race pegged the thermometer and tested the racer’s limits.  The next week was full of chatter about great teamwork and the heat.  It could be that the biggest win for the team from the Gwinnett Bike Fest was in bringing the team closer together.

The best results for Nouveau Velo went to Mike Burns who competed in the masters category and brought home a 2nd place and a 4th.  The best race for the team had to be the Sunday circuit race.  What follows is Duanne’s account of the race:

Nouveau Velo had 4 guys in the Cat 3 race.  About 50 riders and the pace started out moderately and stayed that way most of the day.  The near 100 degree temperatures were probably taking their toll on folks.  Early on Chris, Eddie and Reggie were taking turns monitoring the front, covering moves, keeping the pace and making sure nothing really got away.  I sat in mid-pack most of the race trying to conserve energy with this being my 6th race in 5 days…didn’t know how the legs would respond.  But I felt good.
With about 5 laps to go a small 4-man break got up the road but thanks to the hard work of Nouveau Velo they didn’t get more than about a 15-20 second lead and eventually were reeled back in.  With 3 laps remaining 2 riders slipped off the front, and 4 others began to chase.  With that I slipped away from the front of the group bridging to the 4 riders easily, who were looking at each other to chase the 2 up the road.  While they looked around I rode between them straight up to the other 2 riders.  Once I caught them we had about 2 1/2 laps remaining.  Neither of them would pull through for even one pull with me so I rode them off my wheel before we crossed the start/finish with 2 laps remaining (or about 5 to 5 1/2 miles to go).
Riding solo with two to go I lost site of the peloton behind me and felt fine.  I could see 1 rider trying to bridge up.  He couldn’t bridge up and with 1 to go I was still away with what I thought was enough time to have a good shot at the win.  I knew the team would be working behind for me.  With about a 1 mile to go I could see the group single file behind me coming fast.  My legs were leaving me and as I approached the final uphill drag into the final corner the group were within a couple hundred meters of me and closing me down.  Within site of the line, about 200 meters or less to go, they caught me as they broke into the sprint.  Eddie managed 6th while I slipped back to 21st not able to sprint.  Disappointing but a good day of racing.  We’ll get the win next time!