elkhorn - after stage 1

So let me start by saying that Elkhorn is amazing!!!  I am really stoked on all aspects of this race so far.  I can't believe how long the rider count is for this race.  I would also like to say that this might be the cheapest race I have ever done.  We are camping (awesome!), we are eating the spagetti feed that the school puts on, and Eli's family cooked us up an awesome breakfast.  Here is a pic of our camp site (I took them with my computer, so they are lopsided and the quality is not awesome):

Now, how about today's race?  It was beautiful! The first hour of our race we pretty punchy with lots of people trying to start a break.   No break ended up sticking as it seemed like few were really ready to fully commit.  Today's stage had two climbs at 70ish miles.  One was about 2 miles (12ish minutes) at half way through the race.  The other was towards the end followed by a decent into flat run in to the finish.  Before the first, longer climb I was feeling a weak on the bike.  The first hour I followed a few moves and kept things in check, but really did not try to instigate.  Everyone else on the team was doing the same to keep our GC guys from working too hard. Since everyone was helping, it really made the load easier to bare on all of us.   After the first hour with nothing going, this mellowed up a bit. I sat in and as we started to approach the climb, I realized I was feeling pretty spent.  I slammed a few Gu and hoped that would help.  Sure enough, when the climb started I felt great.  We were going at a pretty mellow pace, so I moved up to the front.  I was even able to cover a few moves.  Made it over the top with everyone and most of those that had gotten popped, got back on on the decent.  The stretch between climb 1 and climb 2 was pretty bumpy, but nothing to cause gaps unless it was a break trying to get up the road. We were in good position going into the climb, and I thought it was much shorter than it was.  I covered a move early, then pushed the pace hard up to where I thought the the top was going to be.   After coming around the corner that I thought I would be descending and realizing we were about 1/2 up the climb, I realized I had blown my wad.  I try to follow one attack off  the front, and that was that.  I fell back quick after that. It took me a while to recover and by that point the field was gone.   I chased hard and was able to finish within a minute of the field. Originally I really kicked myself for not sitting in on that climb, then subsequently getting popped.  But I finished really strong and I am doing what I came here to do, which is get some good miles in my legs.  Plan on not going super deep in the TT tomorrow and trying to have some fun with the crit.   We will see what the last days holds.  I have a feeling I will either be covering early moves, get in an early break, or blowing myself up on the climb.  Whatever the case, I am happy.  I have a great team and I am stoked to be in Elkhorn racing with them.

Battery life is at 5% with no power source in site.  Sorry for the rushed report, but at least I actually did it.  PS. I ended up 19th out of 36 riders.