Giro D' Grafton

It has been a little while since I had done a crit...and the last one didn't go so well to say the least.

But much has turned around since then, as far as biking and life is concerned.   I have been excited and feeling good all week.  I have been putting on a quite a few miles since the last crit.

Jason, Teal, and I left early to go up and watch Katy crush it.  Crush she did.  Well done Ms. Katy.

The course was a 5 turn course through downtown Grafton.  Fairly smooth pavement with gentle turns, nothing that should cause any problems.  The only sketchy area was the last corner before the finish line, there is some lines of tar that they use to patch the road and in the heat these get real squishy and make your bike do weird things (false flats, move around, explode).

We had all brought our trainers along to warm-up down by the car.  i was topping off my tires when I hear a dreaded noise....pssshhhhhhhh.  My front tire went flat....I quickly changed but by that point it was getting late so I just went off to ride a little to warm-up.  I wasn't able to get fully warmed-up  by the time the race was going to start, so I just lined up and planned to warm-up on the first couple laps.

The field wasn't very big today, around 40 riders or so.  Almost seems like the exact same crowd that showed up to the State Road Race.  The race kicked off fairly quickly and maintained a fairly high-speed through-out the entirety.  The first 1/3 of the race I sat on the rear of the pack still trying to warm-up and get a feel for the course and my shifting patterns.  Once I felt fully warmed up and figured out what gears to use, I jumped up to the front.  At this point it was time for the 2nd prime of the day.  The first prime was $40, sadly as we came around the 2nd prime was an after-race massage ( I would prefer money).

I thought what the hell, I don't go for primes and I am sitting good for this one, so why not?  As we came along the topside I jumped and one guy followed me.  We still had 1/3 of the race left so I didn't want to burn myself out too bad and it was only a massage.  We both went for it, but I decided to sit-up and let him have it.   At this point I was feeling pretty good and everyone started moving around for final positions.

This is usually when I screw up and lose positions for the end.  I was sitting top 10 with 3 laps to go, when the rear of the pack surged into us and tightly tightly packed everyone in.  I got pushed to the back (I need to work on this more than anything).   It is really hard to work your way back in at this point because the speed of the race has increased quite a bit and you need to save some energy for the final sprint.  As we were coming around the final corner, something happened where someone went down and took out 10 riders or so (Teal included, his golden locks are fine though).  Luckily I didn't go down and dodged a few  bodies and bikes on the ground.  This totally messed up the final sprint and broke everyone up.  Jason (Milwaukee Wild Man) was about 20 ft ahead of me for the final sprint.  A good little carrot to chase, I went for him, but he was rolling strong and finished right ahead of me.  Overall I took 18th for the day.  Not great but another solid mid-pack finish.

This race I actually learned quite a few things.  Sit-in and never pull (or rarely pull) and fight/push for your position for the final sprint.  This is the most crucial part of any crit.

Now to train very very intensely for superweek and to ride mountain bikes for awhile.