Race Report: GDVC Spring Crit #1, 2005, Masters 4/5
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
We had Jon Tueting, Eric Knuth, Walter Meanwell and me.
I have a short list of goals for this season of racing and one of the bigger ones was to get away for a lap -- which I did about half-way through the race. Lots of good things came out of this. I pushed way too hard up the hill on my own and went through several shades of death. Which meant when a solo rider bridged to me at about the one lap mark I was unable to work with him. The group was taking the corners pretty slowly so the two of us might have been able to stay away (20% chance) but it would have been touch-and-go because of the head-wind on the hill. The other thing I learned was that it is indeed possible to recover in the group after a really hard effort. It was touch and go for second until I told myself that the one lap breakaway won't count unless I finish with the group. The thought of having to do that again was motivation enough to move me back toward the front.
This race was more like a Cat 4/5 race than like the usual 40+ race. There were more tentative riders and the pace was slower. I was figuring there would be a crash in the last corner and with one lap to go I wasn't in a position to get to the front so I put myself at the tail of the group. When we hit the last corner there were at least two crashes -- I was able to avoid them quite them easily to finish near the end of the field.
Jon, Walter, and Eric looked good the entire race. If not for the crashes toward the end, they all might have had some good placings. I felt better than I thought I would -- I didn't expect to be able to attack when we started but after chasing a few tentative attacks early in the race it suddenly just seemed like the thing to do.