Thursday, March 20, 2014

Lindenwood Crit

With the struggle that was the road race out of the way it was time to focus on my bread and butter, the crit. The weather took a turn for the worse as it hung around the mid 30's with TONS of wind, but the precipitation held off and left us with safe racing conditions.

Lindenwood's crit course was set in downtown St Charles, MO and featured a bunch of cobbles. Even better, there were plenty of coffee shops and restaurants along the course that we could hop into and watch the races without having to be out in the cold and wind.  Course shown below:


The course had 3 corners. The two at the bottom of the screen were nice and fast while the top one was usually much slower as everyone was tired of slogging through the headwind featuring 20+ mph gusts.

The race started pretty uneventfully with everyone just kind of hanging out. Marian quickly grew tired of this and sent two guys up the road. Sadly without teammates I had to just watch them go and hope that someone would work to pull them back. Meanwhile Marian's other riders went to the front to sit up and try to disrupt the chase.
Eventually Lindenwood countered this attack by sending 2 of their guys up the road to chase. Again I just had to watch this go. I got tired of this and put in a little attack coming down the home stretch one lap to bridge up to them. Of course, as soon as I caught them one of their guys sat up and the other attacked again. Good teamwork on their part. So now there were just 3 guys up the road.
Photo by Harvey Elliot
The solo Lindenwood rider eventually blew up and it became apparent that the Marian guys were gone. With less than 10 to go it looked like it was going to end in a field sprint for 3rd. With a few laps to go I started trying to decide who's wheel I was going to try to grab to set up the sprint. I didn't have teammates, so I'd have to try to snatch a leadout from someone else.

I heard some Minnesota guys conspiring so I figured that they'd try to get organized. Coming down the backstretch with 1 to go I gently stole the Minnesota wheel from a Nebraska guy and put myself 3rd wheel. The Minnesota leadout guy hit the backstretch and pulled hard. Things were looking promising at first as no one was coming around, but sadly he blew up before he could get us to the last turn. In hindsight I probably should have seen this coming. He sat up and of course drifted right back into me, getting me boxed in with like 50m to the last corner.

I was able to get myself free and into open air coming around the last corner, but the damage had been done since I was probably in around 12th place exiting the corner. I unleashed my trademark sprint and managed to pass a bunch of guys, but it wasn't enough to catch the Notre Dame and Minnesota guys that would end up 3-4. I crossed the line in 5th. As I was getting ready to cross the line I heard a BANG and then the sound of carbon and pavement. Unfortunately there was a crash back in the field, but luckily I was able to avoid it.
Coming into the finish. Note the mess on the right of the screen in the field.
Photo by Harvey Elliot
Crits are always fun and this was no exception. We grabbed a bite to eat before hitting the road back towards Ann Arbor. Next up is a pair of crits (one collegiate and one USAC) at Case Western in Cleveland!

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