Wenatchee Omnium Stage Race

Hello all,
A week and a half ago I raced the Wenatchee Omnium Stage Race. They had a huge turnout with over 450 participants. I have not done too many races before but this race was so well organized and structured. The race consisted of three stages. Time trial and crit on Saturday and road race on Sunday.

The out and back TT course was 15 km with some rolling hills. I don't consider myself much of a time trial est but as I started out I was feeling really fast and noticed that the returning riders looked quite slow. Well, as I hit the turn around I realized why they didn't look that fast as I also slowed down after turning into a strong headwind. It's funny as I didn't feel any tail wind on the way out! I managed to squeeze into 4th position and felt good with the result.

The temperature warmed up to +30 as we prepared for the downtown crit. The rectangular crit course was quite technical with four corners including a down hill on one end and uphill on the other. The road surface was quite rough in spots with uneven pavement mixed with broken concrete. I saw some bad crashes throughout the day and was told that one girl fractured her vertebra. The race schedule was starting to fall behind so they cut our race to 20 minutes + 2 laps. The race started and I rode near the front for a couple laps trying to get the corners sorted out. I had a bit of a scare as my front wheel got caught between the broken concrete road surface just before going into the fast down hill corner. I managed to keep it upright and avoided that section of road like the plague! I relaxed a bit while moving into the middle of the pack and immediately noticed three rides attacking at the front and were up the road with a huge gap in no time. I was definitely concerned as this race was going to be over in 12 minutes and no one was doing anything about it. I jumped to the front and started the chase. I kept waiting for someone to come around until I realized I was on my own. I chased for over three laps until I finally caught the 3 escapees. I didn't have much left at that point and sprinted across the line for 4th position. Lesson learned, with a short cirt of 20 minutes you have to stay at the front and be ready for anything!

Sunday morning started warming up quickly. The RR was approximately 50 km long starting with a flat roll out, 2,000' of climbing, a huge decent, and long flat section to the finish. I drove the course the day before checking out all the switchbacks and sections of 16% gradient! The teenager that won the TT & Crit was raring to go immediately starting the first climb. I was riding with a friend from Kelowna and we decided that we would let the young fellow go on the climb and work together chasing him down on the long flat section back to the finish. I always have a hard time letting a gap open but I stuck to our plan and watched him ride away. I was feeling pretty good on the climb and after some time went by we had a slight change of plans and I started the case. The course was really closed in at this point so I had no idea how far up the road he was. I gave it the best I could until I finally spotted him on the last climb. I caught him just before the start of the decent. It's kind of a long story and I don't mean to be condescending but this poor kid was so freaked out that I caught up to him. He was asking me so many questions about how I caught him, how far back everyone else was, what CAT I was riding, how I placed in the TT & Crit??? A few minutes later he asked me the same questions again! I just wanted to ride. Anyhow, we worked together on the decent and flat section back to the finish. It came down to a cat and mouse tactic with him taking me by inches on the line.

I finished up 3rd in the omnium having the best weekend of racing to date!
Thanks for reading.

Jason