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What German saw:
Category: 5
Result: Top ten
The day was cloudy, but according to the weather reports, it wasn’t supposed to rain, in fact it turned up to be a nice day with a nice clean dry surface, perfect for a criterium, so I was very happy about it. My goal was to position in the first 10 and try to be safe all the way.
After a single lap of warming time, I positioned my self in the front pack. The race started and the tempo was very high reaching about 29-31 mph in the first sector. The pace was very hard in the beginning but I decided to do nothing and let the first 10 racers do the hard work. There was a lot of friction in this race and had to basically survive in order to avoid any crash, I
had to
avoid lots of blocking, pushing and unexpected breaking from the guys around to me.
I kept my position in the first 15-20 riders, I didn’t want to be in the rear pack at all so I kept my position most of the time while paying attention to possible breakaways. During the whole race, my hearth rate was very nice and was feeling very strong. I was able to react to all the attacks and kept good positioning in the outer left hand side. I didn’t want to be boxed; so I faced some side wind instead in order to always have an opening just in case of a crash or attack. At this point we caught the juniors field and the race officers allowed them to combine with us and continue. In my concept, not a smart decision. Remaining 3 laps, I started to move up front, and positioned in about 10 place and let the front guys cut the wind, by lap two I move up to 5th place and faced the wind only a
few
seconds but backed up to 4th place.
In the final lap, I attacked, and remained in first place for half lap, at this point I remember seeing a 29-30 mph tempo, remaining ½ lap, a few riders passed me but I got in their wheel, the sprint came and I recovered a lot of positions but ended up in 9th place overall. I was happy for the final result because I achieved my goal of the day. I am planning on upgrading to cat 4 very soon, but I want to be in another top ten position, just to feel better with myself.
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What Ziggy saw:
Category: 3
Result: Top ten
Well, my big plan to become SuperChampion of the Cat 3's didn't really work out this weekend and you'll read why in a minute. My tuneup ride on Saturday felt really good so I expected nothing but the best for Sunday.
My pre-race warmup went just as good as the tuneup the day before and all signs were pointing to a good result. The format for the day's race was a typical crit, finishing in a Win-and-Out format in which the winner of each of the final three laps was awarded 1st thru 3rd respectively, with the remaining positions placed on the final lap with 3rd place. I didn't see any fellow FFBC 3's on the bike today, so I made some arrangements with the Garden City crew of Nate Shaw. He would work for me and I would work for him should the opportunity ever come up. Actually, we pretty much always have this arrangement at races, so Sunday wasn't really any different.
Our race started off and continued as Cat 3 races typically do: fast at times, really slow at times, followed immediately by a half-hearted attempt at an attack. Nothing stuck, probably due to the tired legs form the day before. I followed a handful of moves, each of which got shut down almost immediately either because the group I jumped onto stopped working or my chase attack wasn't fast enough and I towed the damn pack along with me. I'm not real sure, so we'll just stick with the idea that when they saw me go up the road, they understood the doom that was in store for them if they let me go, ok?
So anyhow, I cranked up the speed for the first prime lap, but shut it down when one of the dudes I was sprinting against was trying way harder than I wanted to. I didn't try that again for the rest of the race. So as the race went on, I held the spot I normally like to hold in these races: somewhere in the top 10 just so I can watch who goes up the road, and so I can stay out of trouble. This may actually have been a bad idea for this race because I ended up doing lots of work on the front and stuck my nose in the wind more than I wanted to just fighting to keep wheels. Again, race blah blah, and attack this and counter that and all of a sudden we were at five laps to go.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the race format was changed on the finish line from what was described in the handout we got at registration which described the fairly straightforward race, to a race that ended two laps sooner than promised. Several racers who like to not pay attention to directions at the start of a race, as well as the announcer on the loud-as-can-be PA system used this slight mixup as an excuse for why they didn't win. Chumps.
Right, so five laps to go, I've got my spot and I'm not giving it up. two laps go by and the announcer announces that the winner of the 3rd lap wins the joint, so again, I get my spot and some Solano guy rails it. I think "great, a leadout". Then the punk dies about halfway round the course and the five retards behind him all sit up. Fantastic.
Suddenly a move on the far left of the course is dragging up half the field. I manage to force my way into a top ten spot when again, the motor on the front dies, and the retards all sit up. This time, it was at the beginning of the very long finishing straight. I didn't want to scrub any speed this time, so I kept going and couldn't get onto another move going up the road with about 5 other guys in it, so I missed out on 1st.
Next lap, I fought for position again, but ended up with my nose in the wind for far too long and was wasted on the finishing straight. 2nd place was gone.
Final lap and I get boxed in on the back side and am about 30 riders back. I push, shove, and yell profanities and manage to find an outside line that allowed me to blast up to the top 15 or so. Round the final corner, the field blows up again and I move up to the front of the group. A few guys had followed me up (apparently I've become the wheel to follow in these damn races, as they told me later), and subsequently came around me at quite a rate. I thought I would be able to close the gap they opened while I was seated. This miscalculation lost me a podium spot. I never closed the gap and had to settle for 6th place, losing out to the three that came around me.
My winnings for the day was a bottle of wine, some galaxy granola, and a T-shirt. Great stuff, but I don't drink wine, granola gives me gas, and the t-shirt was a large, one size too big. I gave the wine and granola to my new GF Angie (who, along with Dr. Broken and the cat 5's and Broken Coble were my own personal cheering section), and will likely use the t-shirt to clean my bike this week.
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What Chris saw:
Category: 4
Result: Crash
I just wanted to give you all an update to how I am doing and to let Richard know that he is still the winner/loser for most injured. I was driven to the er by the ambulance because when they pushed on my neck it made my head hurt more. But i think that that could have been explained by the helmet crack. They got me to the hospital pretty fast and then took some xrays of my neck. Those were all good so they were able to unstrap me from my plastic board and check out the rest of the injuries. Nothing was too bad except for my shoulder. The crack ER doctor was worthless at Kaiser and they are going to take a good while to get me an appoinment, so i am going to Palo Alto med center. It hurts real bad and I am seeing a specialist today to check it out. Thank you to Tim and German for helping me get my stuff back to Fremont, Richard for being there to support me and Jorge for helping the paramedics. I really appreciate it.
As for getting back on the bike, if my shoulder checks out ok I am very motivated right now. I felt I rode suprisingly well up the hills for the road race and only had bad stategy and placement for the end of both races.
Another question. If anyone watched LBL, why were the comentators ripping on Jans Voight for doing tho most of the work on the break w/ the Kaz from T-mobile? Isn't it better to get at least second then have a chance at nothing. Voight is a badass, especially after almost going solo on Wed.
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