Baldwin City Road Race

Today was the Baldwin City Road Race and the the sun rose to a clear and cool day. Scott and Tanya picked me up early and as much as I complained about it I'm glad I beat the line you see in the picture. The bad part is that that's only half of the line, the good part is that there were that many racers out for a great day of racing.
Today's plan was to drive out with Scott, race, and then ride home. I knew the wind was going to coming out of the north, the wrong direction but more on that later. Scott had to leave as soon as the race ended so we signed up for the Masters race. Little did we know it would be the largest field of the day at 40 riders. As we started and rolled out through the neutral zone I made note of the wind howling out of the Northwest at about 25mph. Once we passed the neutral zone that wind quickly made for a pretty negative race. Everybody was trying to hide from the wind and very few were pulling but you knew it would all change eventually once we hit the crosswind sections. On the 2nd lap Scott got off with 2 other guys and got quite a gap. They were out there for 2 laps before the 360 team put 5 guys on the front and started pulling them back. Then Phil Gronniger punched it and shot off the front. His first attack shredded the field and just as it looked like is was going to regroup a bit he punched it again. I bridged across both times and the second time we were away with a small group. Later that lap we picked up Scott and Pete from the early break and by the start of the last lap the break was down to 9 riders. The break was working pretty well until we got closer to the end of the race when people stopped taking pulls. Then it was cat and mouse until the last hill up to the finish. I tried to set a steady pace up the climb and ended up shelling everybody but Phil. He jumped 100m from the line and just didn't have the snap to jump up to him by the line.
Now for the ride home. Even with the wind I did it, I couldn't waste the opportunity to get in a long day on the bike. It actually wasn't that painful once I got past Gardner and I ended up getting in 102 miles. I think it's been at least 10 years since I rode a century. Can't see a repeat performance any time soon, but who knows what the next ride may bring.