Men's D Road Race/Crit: It's a Learning Experience

The recount of my first weekend of cycling:

Saturday, February 27^th, 2010. Sunny, high of 47°F, annoying winds on the backstretch of the course. At the starting line, our group got divided into two sections, with my self, Andy, and Nate H and the front with most of the rest of the group behind the Purdue gentlemen. After the rolling start and a recovery from a missed clip, we got started to a mild pace with a few people pushing ahead, but all were eventually caught.
Everything looked to be going smoothly, right up until the corner official let the pack go approximately 2 miles off course. Once the pace car finally caught up to us, we had already descended down a major hill (which we all had to race back up) and continue on our way. To our dismay, not all of the D field had gone down the rather large hill and actually had been allowed to continue along the course with out being stopped. As we all jockeyed for position, someone lost control of their bike and crashed, taking down a fair amount of people including Andy (NOTE: this was the second or third crash of the race, but the first one that I actually saw). I narrowly managed to avoid Andy’s rear wheel as it was in the air (I think it grazed me, but I'm not certain...) and reformed with the front of the pack.
There weren’t any notable events for a couple of miles as we caught up to the racers that had still not been caught from the earlier “restart.” It was at this point that I let my newbie side shine through and decided to take a flyer and start catching more people. As I rounded the last corner, I finally caught the front rider and we decided to slow it down a bit. It was at this point that I started the end sprint WAY too early and barely managed to hold on for a 16^th (18^th the chart says, but they also didn’t get that I won the first prime either, so…) place finish. Over all it was a very good/challenging intro to collegiate cycling.


Sunday, February 28^th, 2010. Sunny, high of 50°F, light winds. After getting up rather early and relocating to the official Crit location, we were able to warm up on the undeveloped planned development road. The D-squad all lined up in the front of the pack and as the race started, we got a little fractured. This race was quick from the start since the course was basically flat as we ticked off laps, the bell sounded for the first prime lap and the field got more serious. As we rounded the left hand turn, Andy and I began to separate ourselves from the front of the group in preparation for the final climb. About half way up the finish hill, I took off from behind Andy to secure the first place finish for that lap (the MWCCC crit rankings say otherwise, but this is because I didn’t check my standings after the race. LET THIS BE A WARNING TO ALL OF YOU – CHECK YOUR RESULTS AFTER THE RACE!). The race continued on as normal and the bell sounded for the second prime lap. Yet again, as the field rounded the left hand turn, Taylor was the one to pull me most of the way through and allow me to sprint for the first place finish.
After this burner of a lap, I thought that the race had only one more lap to go. I guess I need to get both my eyes and ears checked… I sprinted to the finish on the next lap, only to hear “Four more to go!” Upon over-exerting my self for yet another lap, I nearly dropped out of the race until I was politely reminded that my prime laps would not count for anything if I did so. I managed to pull it together enough to finish the race and not much else after that.

I owe a lot to both Andy and Taylor for letting me ‘do my thing’ and hopefully we can pull more team tactics into our races as the season progresses (and I can learn to count…).

Have a Happy

Nick