I'll make this short and sweet.

1. Neutral portion of the race was crazy. Slowing was yelled out at least 5000 times in 30 miles.

2. Tradewinds has no business trying to clog the front of the peloton with all their riders to impede others at the offical start making it dangerous for people who want to make the initial break pass them on a one lane road.

3. Made the 1st group, and responded to every attack up to Olomana where Eric Lau dropped everyone, and the lead group shredded.

4. Burt, Nguyen, Eric, Carl and I formed a group, but I flatted at the top of Makapuu with 2 miles to go. I was solidly in the top 15 at that point.

5. Took me 19 minutes to fix my flat after my valve extender wasn't working, and had to use my punctured tube with pit stop from a teammate who happened to be there spectating since she crashed out earlier.

6. Sprinted to a meaningless 40th place finish.

Not flat. It was a staple that barely made it through my tire.

This race is just too crazy for me. It's an awesome test against the best riders in the state, but logistically it's crashes waiting to happen. I know of 6 people who crashed, 3 of them taken to the hospital on stretchers. I almost went down in the neutral area when for some reason the peloton slowed down to about 7 mph on the flats, and there were numerous other close calls that I saw.

I don't ever think I will do this race unless I'm in absolute peak form and I feel I have a chance to hang onto the final group. It's just not worth it to do this race "for fun".