Back in 2008, this was my first bike race, ever. I had no idea what I was doing. I showed up with "commuter" shoes, my number pinned on completely incorrectly, and a baggy Troegs jersey that was probably 2 sizes too large. I entered the Cat 5 race, and got dropped somewhere around 14 out of 18 laps. But I was hooked.
I've since done the race twice as a 4, and after getting my cat 3 upgrade last summer, signed up for the 2/3 race this year. The pre-reg list was pretty short, but fortunately more guys showed up on race day, and it looked like we'd have around 30 in the field.
Right from the gun, a ProAir HFA guy went hard, and strung the field out, but soon pulled off. From then on in, the next 10 laps consisted of a series of attacks and counter-attacks. The usual spot was right on turn 3, with slight incline. Two guys dangled off the front for a couple of laps, but they eventually came back. Shortly after that, another two went off the front, but seemed to sit up. Coming into the incline at turn 3, I found myself near the front, and not wanting to just pull the field along, decided to put in a harder effort. I got up to the group of two, and put in a hard pull to get some separation. It didn't take long before we assembled a nice group of 5, and really started hammering. Our time checks went up quickly, 10, 15, 25, 40.... and we were gone.
I felt like 2-3 of us were doing the bulk of the work, and one guy was skipping quite a few pulls. In hindsight, we were going much harder then we really needed to, just to stay away from a field that had apparently just completely and collectively sat up. I didn't expect to get away so easily, and probably did much more pulling then turned out to be necessary. I still expected some chasing from the field, or at least some chase groups to form, but that was not to be the case.
Somewhere around lap 22, the back of the field became visible wrapping around the turns in front of us. Uh oh. Part of me didn't want to end up lapping them, knowing that it would turn into a group sprint, but now they were in sight and it was going to happen. The allure of having a field to sit in on was tempting. With about 5 to go, we caught them.
Coming up behind the back of the field, we were definitely rolling along much faster then them, I briefly thought about just trying to go right by, but another breakmate alerted his teammates to the fact that we were coming in, and "pick up the pace!"
Now the race changed completely, we went from a smoothly rotating group of 5, to a surging field, anticipating the final sprint. Not good for me, plus my calf then started cramping up, and I needed some on-bike contortions to stretch it out, and get it functioning again. I kept trying to keep tabs on where the other guys in the break went, but I kept losing track of them. Tri-State Amoroso seemed to be trying to organize, and help David move up. Without teammates, I kept trying to follow the right wheels, but was losing a battle of positioning. The final lap turned into a hard and fast sprint, with a basically fresh field sprinting for the last 2 money spots, and me losing ground on the other guys from the break.
In hindsight, I definitely did too much work in the break, and it played out against me. I think that had I known how easily the field let us go, I should have either soft pedaled more, or attacked early out of the break, and try to whittle the group down. My legs felt fantastic, and I would have definitely had better chances on my own, or in a group of 2, then duking it out in a field sprint. Well, it was fun lapping the field, that chance doesn't present itself too often in a criterium.
Next up, Emrick Blvd.
I've since done the race twice as a 4, and after getting my cat 3 upgrade last summer, signed up for the 2/3 race this year. The pre-reg list was pretty short, but fortunately more guys showed up on race day, and it looked like we'd have around 30 in the field.
Right from the gun, a ProAir HFA guy went hard, and strung the field out, but soon pulled off. From then on in, the next 10 laps consisted of a series of attacks and counter-attacks. The usual spot was right on turn 3, with slight incline. Two guys dangled off the front for a couple of laps, but they eventually came back. Shortly after that, another two went off the front, but seemed to sit up. Coming into the incline at turn 3, I found myself near the front, and not wanting to just pull the field along, decided to put in a harder effort. I got up to the group of two, and put in a hard pull to get some separation. It didn't take long before we assembled a nice group of 5, and really started hammering. Our time checks went up quickly, 10, 15, 25, 40.... and we were gone.
I felt like 2-3 of us were doing the bulk of the work, and one guy was skipping quite a few pulls. In hindsight, we were going much harder then we really needed to, just to stay away from a field that had apparently just completely and collectively sat up. I didn't expect to get away so easily, and probably did much more pulling then turned out to be necessary. I still expected some chasing from the field, or at least some chase groups to form, but that was not to be the case.
Somewhere around lap 22, the back of the field became visible wrapping around the turns in front of us. Uh oh. Part of me didn't want to end up lapping them, knowing that it would turn into a group sprint, but now they were in sight and it was going to happen. The allure of having a field to sit in on was tempting. With about 5 to go, we caught them.
Coming up behind the back of the field, we were definitely rolling along much faster then them, I briefly thought about just trying to go right by, but another breakmate alerted his teammates to the fact that we were coming in, and "pick up the pace!"
Now the race changed completely, we went from a smoothly rotating group of 5, to a surging field, anticipating the final sprint. Not good for me, plus my calf then started cramping up, and I needed some on-bike contortions to stretch it out, and get it functioning again. I kept trying to keep tabs on where the other guys in the break went, but I kept losing track of them. Tri-State Amoroso seemed to be trying to organize, and help David move up. Without teammates, I kept trying to follow the right wheels, but was losing a battle of positioning. The final lap turned into a hard and fast sprint, with a basically fresh field sprinting for the last 2 money spots, and me losing ground on the other guys from the break.
In hindsight, I definitely did too much work in the break, and it played out against me. I think that had I known how easily the field let us go, I should have either soft pedaled more, or attacked early out of the break, and try to whittle the group down. My legs felt fantastic, and I would have definitely had better chances on my own, or in a group of 2, then duking it out in a field sprint. Well, it was fun lapping the field, that chance doesn't present itself too often in a criterium.
Next up, Emrick Blvd.
