This past weekend I finally got to race on the road again. I did my first crit at this race last year and would have done my second except for the incident that is best summarized by the advise, "don't forget your shoes."
So this year, with shoes and everything else I could think to bring packed up in the car, the wife and I headed to Greenville. My friend Ben was also coming to race and he followed us up in his truck.
We got there in time to sign my life away in exchange for a number and get in a decent warm up. The course is a rectangle 3 blocks long and 1 wide right downtown for a total of just over a 1/2 mile per lap. As usual there was a headwind down one of the long stretches, on saturday it was blowing down the back stretch.
Last year it was raining and the field was small - only 13 riders. With no idea what to expect I was sitting 5th or 6th wheel (as I had been advised) when the field split on the second lap. The three guys at the front accelerated, another guy came out of the pack to join them, the guy in front of me did nothing, and before I knew it they were gone. So less than 5 minutes into the race and it was essentially over. The rest was like the worlds most disorganized group ride.
So this year my goal for Saturday's race was to go with the split. Simple enough. And on the second lap I got my chance. A couple guys went off the front right after crossing the line on the second lap. I didn't hesitate and accelerated up the inside of the riders in front of my to join them. Coming into the first turn it was nearly a disaster as the guy in the lead crashed for no apparent reason. Luckily further carnage was avoided as everyone else managed to pick a line around him.
The crash did halt the momentum of the break, but before long we were rolling again and off the front. It being a cat 5 race, the officials were not pulling lapped riders so things got a bit confusing as our lead group lapped the field mixing in with other riders who were still permitted to rejoin the pack and do work, something that would not be allowed at higher levels.
The pace was relatively high, but not as bad as some of the Tuesday night Worlds I have done with much more experienced riders driving the pace. I did a decent job of staying out of the wind on the headwind side and sometimes pushing the pace on the downwind leg. At one point we had whittled the break down to three and in retrospect I should have put in some work to maintain this advantage. As it was, no one, myself included, wanted to pull down the back stretch so the pace slowed considerably.
Everything went well until the last lap when in the confusion of passing the main pack (again), the other 4 guys who had lapped the field caught us right before the second to last corner. We were also passing a clump of lapped riders so with a dozen people going through the urn I lost a bunch of places and had nothing left for the sprint to get them back.
Overall I was happy to have the fitness to stay with the winners for the whole race, now obviously I need to work on tactics
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