Sunday, March 14, 2010

Forest Acres Crit

The legs were pretty dead this morning so I rode over to the course to get an extra long warmup. I wasn't expecting much today. A smallish field but the usual strong men were there from Carolina Masters and POA. I figured things would be sorted out in the first few laps.


At the end of lap 1 there was the perfect lull so I attacked at the start finish...mostly because my family and friends were there watching and my thought that I might get shelled later in the race. HaHa. I got a good gap which caused a chase and at the backside climb I was caught and the counters went hard. As people flew by I was looking at who went: 2-CM, 2-POA, Jay-check, LL-check. I knew this break would go the distance so it was time to chill.

John "F-ing" Patterson ended up getting away and solo'd in for the win. Jay got 4th, LL 6th.

What follows is a ridiculously long play by play for 7th place... wtf? I guess I'm bored.

I spent the next few laps sitting second wheel and covering any attacks. I ended up away with a CM and Gordon Stihl. I was rolling through and taking 80% pulls but still doing some work cuz I knew the break was long gone. But that I guess wasn't enough for the CM dude--he started giving me some grief. I truly didn't care at this point so I just shut it down, sat on and let them work. Gordon would try to let a big gap open and get me to close it but...I didn't care!

Keith from CM joined up with us and he's flying right now and a really strong sprinter so I had even less motivation to do any work. My "problem" was that now there were 2 CM riders in our group. After a couple laps of Keith and I sitting on he started attacking hard on the climb. I followed him pretty easily a couple times but once we'd get a gap he'd expect me to work and I was like "nope". Actually I tried to tell him I was tired or something Haha... He got pretty pissed but we're friends and I had invited him to stay with us this weekend. In retrospect I probably should have worked with him to get a big gap on the other guys then sat on him for the last couple laps. He's a hard guy to beat when he's sitting on your wheel.

I think Keith was a little worried about Gordon (I wasn't for some reason). With one to go he let a big gap open (to make Gordon close it) so I attacked the other CM rider but my heart (or legs...or mind) weren't really into it. I just went hard enough to make them chase me. We all were together at the climb so I swung wide to the side to watch Keith then we lined up for the downhill finish.

Crusty had told me to be first through the last turn due to the downhill and tailwind. So right before I was going to launch Keith comes flying by...Shit! I got his wheel just after the turn but it was too late. Even though I went into the race feeling like crap the legs did everything I asked them to do so I'm at least happy with that.

TNWC starts this tuesday at 6:30.

2 Comments:

LL said...

Great job and great result!

Steve said...

I write a lot about helping guys win crits. Check it out on criteriumcoach.com
Steve