des moines criterium
this crit followed up the state championsihp crit. turn out was rather poor. perhaps due to the ridiculous entry fee ($30) which was not proportionate to the prize list. the host team however, had a good half of the 20 or so starters, which made me nervous. representing broadmark/hagens berman were me and the newly crowned state champ, morgan schmitt.
the course was a big rectangle with the finish going up-hill and into a slight headwind. the last two corners were quite fast, so good lines would make things easier for a rider who could corner well.
i attacked at the end of the first lap and did a part of a lap alone. maybe two. and then stangeland (from the team in high attendance) came past me on the downhill with a lot of speed and not a single person on his wheel. well, he went on to ride out front of us for quite a while. morgan pullled for quite a number of laps and stangeland's gap remained steady. we tried to get the other teams to do something to help, but it was nada from them. we started attacking but it was sundt who managed to get away solo and make it up to stangeland. i thought we were screwed for sure but they sat up shortly after we finially managed to cleave a group off and chase effectively.
morgan and i bridged with two WoW guys and two BRI guys. that group of eight, with three WoW guys rode around with little conviction. we were getting within short distance of lapping the main group when stangeland crashed. this gave sundt a small gap. i told schmitt to jump across, and he did. the rest of the break failed to react in any way. sundt and schmitt lapped the field and went right through it.
our group lapped the field a few laps later but by that time, sundt and schmitt were gone and the group was too disorganized to do anything about it.
with one lap to go i attacked. it wasn't really the plan but the cornering in the last corner was so awful that i found that when i did it properly i could get a gap. i did it properly 'cause i hate to corner so poorly and just went with it. i attacked as hard as i could all the way up the finishing straight. stangeland chased me down though. much to my delight, however, there was no counter attack. i rested on the flat section and BRI eased the pace up on the downhill so i slipped into third position. i thought for sure that i was screwed, having burned all my matches on the last lap, but i went and gave the sprint a go anyway. turned out i had a little something left and i was able to take it for third. not bad.
we were 2nd and 3rd. not bad at all, considering how outnumbered we were. for a while, we were pretty much hosed but by good fortune (that the WoW didn't take advantage of their superior numbers) and determined riding, we made it up.
