Roman’s Report on Race 1 in the States

Message – as received from Roman Van Uden about his first race after his arrival in the United States:

10 am start. 5 degrees. I took a gamble on clothing as the rain in inevidibel each day its just all about timing. Left the booties off. 2 thermals, skinsuit (new kit hasn't arrived yet), shirt, knee warmers, and gloves. Most of the bunch had thermal booties, full leg warmers, thermal jackets and raincoats.
Piece of Cake (-name of the race).
Dead flat course. No wind. 4 laps. 68 miles (110 km?)
The race was FAST! Nothing like out at Karaka where one guy would slip away and everyone would look to see who wanted to chase.
Narrow roads. One crash; Everyone became jumpy at the sight of an oncoming car, the breaks went on, guys were leaning on each other, riders went down and a couple got spat into the side of a car. I know what you're thinking... AWESOME!!!
None of our team came off and the race was regrouped at the start/finish and started again with 1 lap, 17 miles, to go.
There were no substantial breakaways up until 4 km to go when one rider slipped away, never to be seen again.
My job was to lead out Carson who needed a top 10 finish to gain racing points in order to move up a grade.
I blocked the wind for Carson on the left hand side of the bunch, spending most the time over the center line to avoid the carnage going on in the pack. It was ugly in there.
I finished 5th and carson 7th (he couldn't come round me in the sprint).
A few riders weren't happy with us riding over the center lane and expressed their opinion to us and the judges.
We were consequently relegated to the back of the pack. We weren't the only felons but the bright orange kit makes us easy to pick out.
The gamble with clothing paid off with no rain.
The bike is awesome, everyone should go out and buy sram its the best.
But yea not a bad day, had a good ride, missed out on some cake and a little coin but it was a coin flip between that and ending in a pile up!