guiltypleasure

the race bible stated that riders had to finish only 25% or 15 minutes of the race to be scored (whereas it was 50% for the first crit). when the announcer mistakenly stated at staging that we had to do 50%, the whole field spoke up to correct him. that's what guys had on their minds. the bare minimum. they started us at the bottom of the climb and it was a mad dash for position. some guys had problems and had to actually stop on the hill! game over man, game over! this was the first crit i'd ever started in my little ring. we were running 25 tooth cassettes to make the hill easier, and they were necessary. the first time up the hill was definitely the toughest. the second lap was easier and by the third lap, i was settling in. guys were launching attacks from the gun. there was a crash after only two or three laps that took out a couple of riders and tangling up gord fraser. one rider was laying on the ground simple screaming "aaah! aaaaaah!" it looked painful. it was caused by somebody's tire blowing up. later in the race i saw a guy who'd overcooked one of the fast downhill turns and gone into the barriers. dan harm from recycled cycles did that as well when he was off the back by himself. anyway, after about 15 minutes, a mcguire guy a few places in front of me simply sat up and let a huge gap open on the false flat after the climb. he gapped off myself and quite a number of guys, including his own teammate eric saunders and my teammate adam curry. we chased to close the gap but dangled behind for a number of laps. a few laps later my chain started skipping over my cassette on the climb. it got worse and worse until it was doing it on the flats as well. i stopped at the pit at the top and they found that the brand new shimano chain that they'd put on on friday had developed a stiff link. they tried to fix it and i got back in (there was no official keeping track). one lap and it was obviously not fixed. i went to the bottom pit where the officials were and tried to get it taken care of. it wasn't an issue that could qualify me to take a free lap. so, i said that i'd just wait there until i was lapped and then he could take my number down and i'd get a pro rated time and be noted to be finishing. he didn't quite get it. he put me down as DNF. dustin and tom held on for the whole race and owen was dropped some where around 35 minutes. he continued racing and was pulled with three laps to go. dustin and tom, like lieswyn from health net didn't know which was the finishing lap and just rolled across.

we were robbed. the officials put saunders and quite a number of other wankers in front of owen, putting him about 10 minutes down from where he should have been. this moved us from the rightful 2nd on the team competition to sixth. lame. we protested as soon as the results were posted, but not in writing (none of us knew official procedure). we wrangled with an official who refused to listen to what we thought was the actual problem for more than an hour and were finally told to beat it. they refused to consult the tapes, insisting that their notes were perfect. we were screwed. of interesting note, they pulled owen at 3 to go (which they acknowledged) and then calculated that in those three laps, he'd finish 14 minutes down from the group if he continued racing. laps were taking about 3-4 minutes. so, he was probably pulled when he was 3 minutes behind. that means he'd lose 11 minutes in 3 laps. if the pack took 4 minutes to complete, they'd be lapping owen three more times in those three laps. damn, owen, you're slow!

i can't recall all the results, but tom and dustin came in for high placing in the U23 competitions as well as the best amateur competition. broadmark alum tyler farrar won the U23 competition. surprising, really. they were also high in the overall, 18th and 17th. tom is listed at solomon woras. on other days, he was listed as tom peterson. fickle.