Vic's Crit

Vic’s Crit was held out in the Prospect community in Longmont and was my second separate Cat 3 race. After last week’s success and second place, I felt confident and hoped to take the win today. At the same time, I was willing to gamble a bit and decided I wanted to race aggressively instead of sitting in the pack conserving for the final sprint. I’ve been training hard, fitness is good, and this is a more technical course that I heard makes it “easier” to break away from the pack because there are so many turns you can get out of sight.

Last week I played it smart and didn’t go for any primes and saved all my energy for the final sprint. Today I decided to again hold back on the primes but take advantage of them and make attacks right after everyone else had just sprinted for the prime.

The start/finish came at the base of a significant downhill and then almost immediately the course turned a sharp right. Then another immediate sharp right. Then another sharp right immediately following that. Then almost immediately a sharp left and beginning a slight uphill. After that left turn the course went straight for a tiny bit, then right and continuing uphill a tiny bit straight, and finally right onto the longest (only?) straight way of the course, which again was all downhill. I’m going through all this detail to make the point that the straight ways were very short and it was difficult to find a stretch long enough for me to gain a gap. I understand one can accelerate fast out of turns and gap that way, but I guess I was never able to be in a good position after the sprint for primes before all the twisting and turning began. So I made my attacks on the two somewhat straight ways uphill before the long straight downhill. I was patient and waited until about 20 minutes into the race and the fourth out of five primes. There were only nine of us and I attacked from behind and made a gap, but by the time I got going down the straight downhill the pack caught me. I tried a second time after the fifth prime, and this time a GS Boulder was with me (she was third last week) and I think we might have stayed away except her own GS teammate accelerated and brought the pack up to us…this understandably frustrated the girl and me too! Soon after a Primal Treads girl (who ended up taking the win) made a strong attack. I stayed back and watched and she seemed to be making a gap. This was both discouraging and gave me hope, because I didn’t like the distance she was making but I also thought if she can do that perhaps I should try a third big attack and I could stay away this time, now with only 15 minutes left to go. I surged and caught and passed the Primal Treads girl, but again on the downhill the pack caught me.

When I wasn’t attacking, I often found myself in the back and even with a two or three bike length gap! That is terrible and I guess the announcer even commented that I was having to do a lot of work since I wasn’t in the draft. I need to work on that but I think still feel nervous taking turns in a pack. With three laps to go, I got a good position third wheel and wanted to stay there through the last turn to the finish and take the winning sprint. However, by the last lap I was in the back again and the first right turn after the finish my wheels skid under me. We were going fast, and I must have needed to shift my weight more to the outside, plus I think I may need new tires. That was scary, and then the final turn before the downhill to the finish I got cut off a bit, my pedal clipped the ground, and I was in the worst position ever for the final sprint - I came in second to last.
My teammate, Carol Kauder, rode really smart and strong and stayed protected in the pack until the final sprint, taking the podium for her first time as a 3 and winning second place – go Carol! I think I did a great job tiring out the field (and myself) but I could have raced smarter and realized after the first attack, and after watching how the Primal Treads girl got caught (though I was the one to bridge that gap), that I wasn’t going to get away. If I had saved those other two attacks for the end I could have contested in the final sprint. I think the Primal Treads girl who made that one attack played it well, working hard once to try for an attack and then sitting in until winning the final sprint.

It felt good to actually feel tired after the race, but just now I’ve compared my peak power with last week and am shocked that I actually worked harder last week (except for the 5 second peak power)! Here’s the breakdown:

Longmont Crit (last week)
5 seconds 734
30 seconds 520
1 minute 385
2 minutes 297
3 minutes 268

Vic’s Crit (today)
5 seconds 946 (all time high!)
30 seconds 482
1 minute 343
2 minutes 273
3 minutes 253

I believe the 946 was my first attack. Well, this race was about experimenting with riding more aggressively and I know I am learning a lot about cornering from a race like this. Congrats again to Carol – it was great to have company warming up and in the race, and it’s wonderful to share in her celebration!

My next race is in Salida next weekend, both the crit Saturday and the road race Sunday. They put the 3’s in with the 1’s and 2’s, though I think we’ll be scored separately so I hope they won’t pull lapped riders on the course. I’m not saying I’ll be lapped (trying to keep my confidence high here!) but it does make for a tough race when pro racers are setting the pace. Thanks for reading everybody!