guiltypleasure

i'm a pretty decent crit rider. i'm not too heavy on the breaks, i corner well enough and i can handle the high speeds. in pro races i can hang in just fine. if i end up too far back the accordian affect and all of the reaccellerations can really start wearing me out. if i hold good enough position i can ride just fine.

well, this course make position even more imperative. there's a hill preceded by a long false flat section as well as quite a bit of wind. the hill in and of itself isn't that difficult. however, if you start becoming fatigued or have a tough couple of laps the hill can send a rider backwards through the pack pretty damned fast. once at the back you have a lap or two before you're toast. not so much completely worked but gapped. on this course once you are gapped, it is very difficult to make it back on. the challenge of the course is basically one of recovery: there isn't much.

the race was about 90 minutes or so. i got off to a good start. it was challenging but i was handling it just fine. i was near the front but not right at the front. in the early craziness i pushed it to get to the front. better to put out 100% for the first few to do an 80% effort for the many later laps than an 80% effort for a few and a 100% for many later. simply mathematics.

at one point i found myself at the back and and struggling. the guys in front of me were opening huge gaps and sprinting into them out of the corners. the pros can handle that sprinting out of the corners many more times than i can. i probably couldn't have used a better tequnique to deal with that, but oh well. anyway, a lap later it slowed down a tad and i zoomed all the way to the top 20 riders where i enjoyed a smooth and easy ride. the difference is simply incredible. that didn't last long and i found myself near the back again. i spent the rest of the race working my way back up to the middle. unfortunately it stayed fast and i wasn't doing a good job of gaining position.

at about an hour into it a guy from the mercy cycling team came backwards though the pack. at a corner he "chopped" my front wheel, forcing me to pull back and let him in front of me. well, he proceeded to open enormous gaps in every corner after that. i just couldn't get around him and the sprints out of the corner were killing me. we had to put in a huge effort on the false flat leading up to the climb as he'd let 2 bike lengths open in front of him. on the hill he just shook his head and pull off with another big gap opening up in front of him. i tried to close it but couldn't. i went backwards but made it over the top just on the tail end of the group just as a prime (prize lap) was being rung. but i was doomed and came off the next time around. i was able to hang onto a toyota-united guy for a lap but he drilled me on the climb and i couldn't hang.

in hindsight i realized that my big mistake was not pushing it on the climb whenever i could. because the pack wouldn't stay single file on the climb i'd lose position even though i was basically riding the same pace as the guys in front of me. i needed to put out 100% on the climb to do 80% on the rest of the course. i ended up doing 80% on the climb and 100% the rest of the lap. bad news because pretty soon you're doing 100% the whole way around and that can only last so long.

in the end i did two laps solo before being pulled. a lap later, owen was gapped off by a coupla mountain bikers from oregon riding for the areospace engineering team. about 20-30 riders finished. i think only 40 of the 120 starters were left when i fell off the back.