Our criterium race was early in the morning on Saturday, sadly
as I awoke I could hear to gentle pitter patter of rain on the window. It tapered off and I quietly hoped we were
done with the wet stuff as the course would likely be dry if it stopped now. I got geared up and headed over to the
race. When I got there the road was dry
and the temperature was cool. Perfect, I
got in a few practice laps between the races before heading back to the car to
get in my final warm-up on a stationary trainer. As I was riding the trainer it started to
sprinkle again, then it picked up into a full on rain. So sad, I’ve never done a road race in the
rain much less a fast paced criterium with a couple of high speed corners. For the most part the rain stopped before the
race but the streets had rivers running on them and at the bottom of the hill
with a fast left hand corner, there were lakes.
I lined up on the front and figured it would be safer to be
on the front at least the first couple of laps to make sure everyone made it
around the wet corners. After someone
nearly crashed into me during a practice lap taking a corner stupidly, I knew
things might get interesting. I tried to
be patent on the front and not go too hard but after a few laps the pace went
up and I ducked back in the group for a nice little road spray shower from the
other bikes. Things were progressing
nicely until there was a prime announced for additional omnium points and the
group took off like they were fired from a gun.
I was left struggling to hang onto the tail end of a splintering group and
finally got gapped off. The legs just
didn’t have a response to that acceleration.
I begin looking for other riders to work with and came
across the current omnium race leader in my category, perfect, a free
ride. He had beaten me in the TT by
almost two minutes so I knew he’d be strong.
Fortunately he’s technical skills in the corners were not very good and
I could easily pass and on the fast turns, gapping him. He would bridge up and I would hold on for
dear life. We were stuck in this mode
for far too many laps.
As the laps ticked down our group had swelled to about 5 and
we still had not been lapped. We had
just been given the 2 to go sign and were getting ready for our bell lap when
the motorcycle marshal came buy in the final 100M to the finish line. We kept going but were caught about 10 feet
from the finish line by the sprinting finishers. Suddenly our race was over, personally I
wanted to finish on the lead lap but after all that chasing in the cold and
wet, I was ready to be done.
Unfortunately the officials thought I was with the lead
group and placed me in 3rd for the race. Now, I’d really like to finish on the podium
in a road race someday but this was not the day. Once I caught the error I let the officials
know and they set out to figure out what had happened. Unfortunately this didn’t happen until later
in the day because immediately after the race I had to go warm-up, I was wet
and cold and not hanging around to find out the placing of a lapped rider. Anyway, they ended up giving me 15th
for the crit. I was pretty happy to have
safely negotiated and finished my first wet criterium. Now the legs would really have to recover
before the long hard road race.
Congrats on a strong finish Brian. That course is tricky when dry and the rain made it wicked. Every category I saw out there had the same crazy fast pace wet or dry - not sure why. My coach told me that my power output during the first 2/3s of my race was equivalent of a HARD P-1/2 race so I suppose that augers well for my future.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading Tom. That race was fast and in combination with the wet, half our field was pulled or didn't start. So, just being able to hang for the duration is saying something. It was fun to watch you race that afternoon.
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