Long in the saddle: Right move, right place...

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Right move, right place...

...wrong time.

That sums up the road crit I did on Sunday. The race was nine laps on a nice 2.8 mile course that had one slow long climb on the front leg, a few sweeping turns then a short steep downhill that sent you right back uphill for a hard right for the last 1000 meters to the finish.

The big minus for the race was that it was not on closed roads, so the yellowline rule was in affect. That together with the narrow roads we have here in PA meant passing/moving to the front was tough with the 75 plus racers field.

With no teammates in the race I was a one man band so I sat in the field the first 4 laps to see what was gonna go down.....and not much did. A few single riders attacked hear that there just to be pulled back in by the peloton. On the sixth lap I saw the strongest of the single attackers from earlier moving to the front again...once he went I jumped on his wheel.

We managed to put a 20 meter gap on the field for a few minutes, but on his third pull he was toast and sat up...we were pulled back in like the rest.

Coming across the start/finish for the bell (final) lap the whole field slowed the pace to start setting things up for the final sprint to come. Not wanting to play in the whole field sprint game I knew I had one last shot to get away...this was it and I took it (even thou it was two miles from the finish.)

I went and went hard, and to my luck three riders came with me. After my pull I sat back in and saw we had about 30 meters on the field. After my second pull we were down to a twosome, on my third pull this was the picture...