It is hard to believe, but the traditional start of the road race season is upon us with the first weekend of racing at the Greenville Spring Series. It never ceases to amaze me how good the turnout is for these early season races and how tough the P/1/2 field is. The team had a successful weekend, placing 3 people in the winning 9 man break on Saturday, and putting Ben Miller into the winning 3 man break on Sunday.
Pre-race meeting
The first step to team success is to make a plan. Here, Director Sportif Steve Sperry, brings the team together to talk strategy for the BMW Performance Center Race. The plan for both days - Follow our way into breaks, make sure we have someone in every move, and line up a good leadout train for the finish.
Ben Miller, Josh Whitmore, and Spencer Beamer make the winning break
Day 1 - Donaldson Center. Plan worked. Globalbike had 3 in the winning break of 9. We all contributed to driving this group, eventually building up a maximum 5min advantage of the group.
Josh Whitmore Finishes 6th
I was the highest finish in 6th. Spencer did a lions share of the work in the break and eventually went back to the group, leaving Ben and I to figure out how to manage the finish against 2 Team Type 1 guys, Chris Butler of BMC, Andy Baker, and Matt Howe. When the attacks started coming, Ben covered as many as he could, then I followed as many as I could, eventually getting dropped by the others with 2k to go. So, Josh=6th, Ben=8th.
Coming in for the field sprint, David Forkner lined up a good leadout for Boyd Johnson who took 10th overall.
Photos by Eddie Helton and Curt McPhail
Josh Whitmore
