Race Reports!

I am terrible at remembering that this place even exists, gotta work on that, I guess. Anyway, race report(s)!

First, I managed to hold onto 2nd place in the cat 5 Spring Series GC, good enough for me. I mean, I got a $150 gift cert. for George's which, while George's is generally overpriced, is more than I paid for the series. So I'm definitely okay with that.

Last Tuesday I had my first crit ever, and I was not impressed. Sketchy riding all over the place, granted it was the first crit of the year and cat 5, but still. A sign of trouble: in a 25 minute race in cool weather, some idiot decides the second lap would be a good time to get the ol' water bottle. Problem is, he apparently didn't know how bottle cages work and promptly dropped the bottle in the middle of the pack. No problem, I didn't even have to run over it, but it didn't bode well for the race if that's what happens two laps in. Trouble: With about 8 laps to go, I almost got taken out in a corner. Two people came up on my right and the outermost guy cut the corner (left turn) too sharply, causing the middle guy to cut into my line to avoid wrecking forcing me into a course marker cone. I knocked that cone over like what(bitch ass traffic cones ain't got shit on me), then rebounded into the rear wheel of the closer of the two who turned into me. I didn't go down, but I was sure unhappy at that point. Nothing else too notable happened to me in that race, I came in 3rd using a half-assed sprint (never got out of the saddle), and that was that.

Today I had what was hopefully my last race as a cat 5 tonight. Just a short little crit in a parking lot. Since last week I've been planning on getting in on or starting a break, but I managed to get myself sick for like the fourth time this spring, so I felt kinda shitty, and couldn't breathe well at all (shallow breaths only unless I want to start a coughing fit).

A couple laps in, the pace started to drastically pick up as one guy started drilling it. After a a couple laps he peeled off the front by himself, and everyone seemed content to sit back and let him go. I wasn't, but I was stuck in the middle of the pack, and it took me another full lap to work my way out and around to the front. By then he was way off the front, but I went for it anyway. Two other guys grabbed my wheel when I started to chase, but either weren't actually interested in bridging up, or weren't able to hold my wheel. Anyway, a couple laps later I finally caught the breakaway guy, and we started swapping pulls every lap.

We were able to keep the field ~1/2 a lap behind up until 5 laps to go, when the smarter riders started to realize how much distance they needed to gain. I was fighting just to hold the other guys wheel by 3 laps to go but didn't get dropped until the final 50 meters or so. By the final lap the main group had shortened our lead to maybe 30m, but were never able to reel us in. I didn't have enough left to sprint for 1st, and just sat up after checking I wasn't in danger of losing 2nd place. First successful break from the main field (while sick), I'm happy with that.

Time to wreck some faces in the cat 4 hoo boy.