On Sunday, the same day the Canadian nationals wrapped up in Burlington, Ont., SpiderTech rider Flavio de Luna was racing in the Mexican championships. Flavio tells the story:
GUADALAJARA, MEX — The road nationals were in Guadalajara, is the second largest city in Mexico. It’s located on the west side of Mexico about to hours from my home town, Aguascalientes.
We had a circuit in downtown Guadalajara, 11 laps on a 17-km-long circuit, mostly flat with a one-kilometre-long steep hill.
The race started at 9 a.m. with pretty wet roads from overnight rain, the pavement was pretty sketchy at some parts so I tried to ride most of the time up front, especially the first few laps.
So the race started pretty hard as expected with attacks coming from everywhere. On the second lap Bernardo Colex attacked on the hill and I followed his move, we did one lap as a break an then we where caught by team Jalisco, which had about 13 guys working for the Colombian — now Mexican — Gregorio Ladino.
The next few laps were pretty much following attacks and trying to get on the good break. On the sixth lap there was a big split in the field which took about half of the pack out of the race.
Towards the finish, about three laps to go and only 30 riders left in the race, there was a four-man break up the road and there was no team chasing — actually there was no big teams left on the pack who could organize the chase. The rhythm of the race was going really easy at that point so I decided to go up the road for a solo break and try to bridge across the front break which was about one minute 30 seconds ahead. I spent one lap by myself and after that I was joined by a rider from team Jalisco. We were able to catch the four-man break about half lap to go after that we were joined by another five-man group and that was the head of the race — about nine or 10 riders marking each other.
As we approach the 1k to go mark I tried to attack and go solo but I was caught 300 m to go and there was nothing left in my legs for the sprint! I think I should have waited and just followed  a good wheel and do my best on the sprint but you never know if your attack is going to work or not, so I finished ninth.
Overall it was a great race for me, had to work a lot marking every move and every dangerous rider but I’m happy to se that the legs are responding and looking forward for the next part of the season with the team.
– Flavio de Luna
