Friday, April 13, 2007

Santa Rosa Corporate Crit


This weekend is an off weekend due to the drunken debauchery known as sea otter. We actually have guys going down there on the team to partake in the drinking games. I on the other hand will be off to Santa Rosa by my lonesome (bike inside car). There will be a 4/5 and a 3/4 crit. I hope to have another stellar performance like last week. I really want the finish to be a breakaway, so I am going to be very aggressive in both races trying to establish a break. And if it comes down to it I will believe in myself to be able to solo towards the end if nobody ends up following an attack by me, unlike last weekend.
I am one to not waste money. By that I mean if I prereg for a race I will be damned if I don’t race. I drove down and everything was fine, no rain or traffic for that matter. As soon as I hit the davis area the clouds start to dump on me.
I get to the race early enough to watch the juniors and then the 5’s race, I am just hoping that the rain lets up…Ive signed up for two races.
Its now my turn to race, ive raced in the rain before but never during a crit. What an experience. Maybe its just me and my lack of that killer instinct right now but those guys were fearless or stupid. I think the latter. This one guy with a webcor jersey on would swing wide and zip through the bot dots, which about fifty percent of the time would lead to him fishtailing his back tire. I must say this made me uneasy during the race. I made one solid attack and had a group to work with for a few laps but the pack brought us back in. I figured this was going to be one big nasty field sprint in the rain…….as the race continues on so does the standing water from the rain. For the final sprint I was sitting about 14th or 16th. I don’t know for sure what happened as it was tough to see with all the rain but three guys went down in front of me. I ended up sliding out of the way and managed to keep my bike upright. I hung out a little bit after the race to see if it was going to clear up. After the 3’s race I ended up bailing, to risky to race in.