PIR Bike Race

Tuesday I went to the Portland Raceway to race the bike in the cat 4/5 race. I did this in April and stayed with the group the whole time. This time it was 2 days after doing a tri, but I wanted to try it. Started out with the group and quickly fell to the rear and had to really work to stay on. On the third lap they ran the bell which means the first 3 across the line will get points (hot spots). So halfway through lap 3 I was in the rear of the two lines and a guy started weaving from line to line right in front of me. Maybe he didn't know I was there? After he cut me off the third time, I was mad and about to yell at him when the group accelerated into the s-curves before the final straightaway. So he picked a line and I picked the other and stomped on it to catch up and got behind a little girl? The juniors race with the cat 4/5s. Unfortunately she flagged on one of the curves and then pushed to catch up and when I pushed the legs had nothing in them, so in a blink of an eye I was 20 yards back and lost the slipstream. So the effort required to go 26-28 in the slipstream now netted me 21-22, so I watched the group fly away. Oh well, now it's just a time trial for me, so I did the final 3 laps by myself and tried to keep it over 20 at all times and succeeded. I came across the finish line with an average speed of 22.2 just ahead of the massive cat 3/4 group and then I moved over to let them roar by. Afterwards a spectator said "you were out front before they reeled you in", I didn't have the heart to tell him I was a straggler from the other group. On the drive home, I saw a group of 10 bikers on the Marine Drive bike path watching someone change a flat. So I turned around and stopped and ran over with my floor pump- talk about a happy group, I made their day.