The dirt races are over - BR report

Yesterday was Boulder-Roubaix, the last of 2 races, held on mostly dirt roads North of Boulder. The weather was great, sunny and warm. A bad knee and neck pain had put me in the doubtful category to start but I decided to give it a go. Not much of a warm-up had me a little worried. It seems that that the guys up front are there to thin out everyone in the back. It must have worked as I heard we had dropped 30 guys on the first lap. I was riding, to my surprise, near the front most of the time and didn't notice it. On lap 2 I finally see a familiar face as Mr. Marti (racing because his son called him out) pulls alongside of me. I can only think TR and C-man can't be far behind. I'm busy keeping pace up front and don't have any time to look around for fear of crashing. There had been a break up the road that I let go and it was still there so I attack the hill before the pavement with another rider to join them but he's not working and we eventually are back in the field. I was actually enjoying myself, riding near the front able to respond to the accelerations as they were happening... right up to the time when M Carter attacked at the start of the rollers and strung the entire field out all the way up the feed zone hill where I had my motor shut down as I tried to stand and sprint up the hill. It was disheartening to watch everyone ride by as I dropped my chain to the small ring. Everyone that is except Larry. So I turned around at the top and saw him coming up. Allright, now it's a team training ride. I still felt pretty good and as Larry put it, I basically pulled him around for 3 laps. We weren't alone the entire time as we picked up Patrick from Primus-Mootry. And I didn't pull the entire way. They pulled through on the pavement and some dirt. I did want to catch the riders that were dangling in front of us and set out as we returned to the dirt on the last 1/2 lap to do just that. After the first hill Larry&Pat were off my wheel and I went into TT mode to catch the rider before the feed zone hill, dropped hime there and went after the other 2 that were riding just to finish. I finished right behind them at the line. I felt pretty good about my ride except for the lack of power when it mattered. TR keeps telling me the season is long. Yeah, we should be killing em soon as they burn out. Oh yeah, I finish 37th out of like 90. The course was nice, can't wait till next year