Sunday’s Out Like a Lion Salisbury Criterium
The Pro 1,2’s would include such personality as Josh Whitmore, Andre Vandenburg, Austin Brown and double dippers like Jim Cunningham, Rodney Dender and Derek Kidd. The race started with no hesitation as the field zoomed around the 4 corner lop sided course featuring a 500 meter stair step hill through the finish followed by a fast downhill into a flat section back into the hill. From the getgo attacks were flying and Global bike green could be seen in nearly every move including as sir Andre Vandenburg who made his way into the second longest break of the day before an ever chasing field brought it back with around a dozen laps to go.
Josh Whitmore deserves the work horse award for his unyielding presence at the front covering move after move allowing his fellow teammates to recover. One such person would be me who had been sitting in for most of the race not feeling so confident about the draining drag race up the hill lap after lap. However noticing that I had not done my fare share of the work and forced myself to make my way to the front even if it meant not finishing.
With 10 laps to go I noticed a group of 5 + 6 straglers rolling off the front without a green jersey in it and decided that it was now or never and jumped across making contact with a few chasers half way around just in time to catch a free ride up the hill. By the end of that lap we were a break of 11 with Mtn. Khakis, DLP and Jetfuel pro teams having 2 or more riders represented = free pass for me to sit in! As we climbed the hill coming into 1 to go the break split and I was forced to jump across and latch onto Adam Myerson’s wheel where I stayed through out the last lap. DLP’s boyd Johnson was to be led out by his teammate as we entered the last 500 meters - with 200 to go Myerson jumped and instantly gapped Boyd and myself who battled it out for the remaining podium spots, Boyd handily held me off - I would be 3rd.
A big thanks to all of my teammates, who certainly helped take the pressure off those not feeling so great for the first 2/3 of the race… Kudos to Jim Cunningham for finishing and playing very active roles in both the Masters and Pro 1,2 races coming back from an early season crash. 
