Tonight's race took us to Innsbruck for three laps of the Innsbruckring loop through the downtown area. The loop is mostly flat, but the sharp ascent up the "Legsnapper" hill, and the fast descent afterward, makes it challenging to keep a group together.

We had our biggest group of the season so far, with seven riders signed up. Steve had some registration issues and couldn't get into the race, so we started with our usual suspects of myself, Carson, Melissa, and Shawn, joined by Dusty and Jamie, both riding their first TTT of the season.

Having a team of six made for longer breaks between pulls compared to some of the races we've done in previous weeks with just three riders, but it still was a lot of work. The longer breaks are nice, but that means that everyone pulls a little harder, so you're working harder at the front during your pulls, and getting a little less recovery during the breaks.

I must have gone into oxygen debt right from the start, because by the time we got to the first hill, I totally scrambled the pull order, leaving everyone looking around wondering whose pull it was. Sorry about that, guys. We got it straightened out on the descent, and resumed a nice organized formation for the rest of the first lap.

The Legsnapper claimed its first victim on the second lap, as Jamie took a final big pull going into the hill, and then slid off the back, telling us to go on without him. We carried on with five after that, and decided to raise the pace slightly for the final lap. Melissa hung on up and over the final climb and then dropped back after the descent with about 2K to go. She did a great job with a strong solo TT effort the rest of the way as a backup for the four of us left on the front (the finishing time comes from the fourth rider over the line, so it's nice to have a Plan B when you're down to four, in case someone has mechanical or network problems). Carson, Shawn and me carried on with shorter pulls on the final run-in to the finish, pushing hard to try for a negative split on the final lap, which we got easily (12:35 on the final lap, compared to 13:06 and 13:07 on the first two).

We ended up with a finishing time of 39:28, which currently has us sitting in 40th place out of 171 teams in our division, which I'm very happy with. It was great to see some new riders -- looking forward to even more next week. Come join us!