Philly this year was strange for sure, i guess everone says that every year but this one was perplexing. too many teams thinking they HAD to be in the break, too many guys going hard up the wall, too many guys waiting around for a sprint finish, it all added up to no break getting significantly away, no let up of the pace for almost 6 hours, and a huge crash at the finish because everyone thought they could win the big one.

we DID do the race in record time for an average of over 27 mph, but it was never hard per se. or, at least it was not as hard as it could have been, no one really smashed it up the wall (i guess no euros to ride the thing in the 53X15 which, seriously, has happened) and no team went to the front and rode hard for more then a half a lap. there were constant attacks and my impression was that it was run off like a 100k crit…X2.5 times.

at the end coming off logan circle T-Mobile was winding up their leadout and everything looked to be going according to plan when the wheels fell off big time, i guess a Successfulcrashing.com rider went straight into the train and the whole pack exploded. lucky for me the crash fanned right and i was on the left, so i only had one t-mobile flailing on the pavement in front of me. a quick hop to the left made sure he didn’t get my chainrings inserted in his head but i think i may have clipped a pedal…sorry dude. i snuck a peak right and saw bikes flying, guys hopping the median straight into the oncoming caravan, some try and hop the median and failing, and i had to look away. it was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. i’d like to see the replay on youtube, i’m sure it was crazy.

anyway, survived that one and just rolled in for top 30. Emile was almost top 10 (11th), avoiding the whole mess entirely, and rich made it through unscathed and just coasted across for 50th.