Logan Owen is currently in Europe with USA Cycling participating in two World Cup races as he aims for the World Championships in February. The purpose of the trip is to gain much needed experience and earn World Cup points which are crucial to a good starting position. Last Sunday in Tabor Logan ended up in 5th place. Today’s race was in Plzen and saw him go 2 places better to end up on the podium in 3rd place. Here is his report:
When we got to the course nothing was really any different from the pre ride yesterday except it got a bit more sloppy. So Curtis and I pre rode the course for a lap just to see if there were any major changes to the course and there were none that we could tell. We then headed back up to the car, changed and got our warm ups in. Before I knew it I was getting called up as the 5th call up. All of us were locked in the grid and ready to go. When the light turned green I pushed down on my pedals and my chain came off and I flipped over and a French kid landed on me. Awesome (I was that guy). I got untangled, stayed calm, tightened my shoe back down, got my chain back on and began the mission of trying to catch as many people as I could. By the time I got going I was about 30 seconds off the back of the 2nd to last place guy as the last placed guy was….me. I was able to close down to that guy pretty quickly and then was passing everyone every second the first lap because I was running the technical sections. My A bike’s derailleur hanger got bent severely but for being severely bent the di2 worked super well and got me to the pits. So I was stuck switching between my B and C bike for the rest of the race.
After the first two laps I caught a group of 4 fighting for 6th and I immediately went by them and began bridging the gap to the group of 2 fighting for 3rd. When we got the bell lap I had just made contact with the group of 2 and immediately started attacking them. I dropped the Dutch kid but the Italian kid put up a good fight and stayed about 3 seconds back most of the last lap. I was able to put more time into him in the technical sections before the long stair run up which was really close to the finish. I hit the finish straightaway and it began to hit me that I was about to get my first World Cup podium. I saw all the photographers just past the finishing taking photos in their UCI vests as I crossed the line. Not only did I cross the line in 3rd but I also moved into 3rd in the World Cup overall. This was a huge accomplishment for me especially because I had to have the best ride of my life to pass 50 kids and get 3rd. I wonder how I would’ve done if I had a clean start? But that’s what the 3rd World Cup in Koksijde will show me!
A big thanks has to go out to USA Cycling, Geoff Proctor, Gully, Redline Bicycles (and Tim of course), and Tête de la Course Cycling for helping me achieve this.
Now to getting packed up, some sleep and a flight back to the US tomorrow.
-Logan Owen
