Apple Pie Criterium 4/10/2010

I did two races yesterday, first the W3/4 and then the W1/2/3 in the afternoon. The weather was cloudy and about 50 degrees, with a bit of wind, though it rained during Jose's Cat 2 race.

Category: W3/4
Field Size: 44
Length: 40 minutes
Teammates: Josie
Place: 2nd

The course was a 0.7 mile loop in an office park, with a bunch of turns. There were two right turns, then a left turn followed by a gentle right curve, then a right, a longer straight section with a slight shift to the left, then a final right into the finishing stretch. The race was scheduled at 45 minutes, but because they were running a bit late because of some crashes earlier, they shortened it to 40 minutes. It was a very large field, the largest by far that I'd been part of, so it made the race a little harder for me because positioning became more important. Unfortunately, at the start line, the person in front of me didn't start well, I think she had trouble clipping in or something, I just know that she was stopped two feet past the start line and I had to go around her and ended up in the back of the pack. Because of the abundance of corners, it was hard to move up in the pack because in order to move up you usually had to be on the right of the pack, but then on the corners, if you were on the inside then you're most likely have to give way and slow down in order to not get crunched by the pack taking the corner too tight. People weren't holding their lines very well, so it seemed pretty dangerous to be on the inside of the turns, and I didn't want to crash. As a result, I pretty much stayed in the middle and the back the whole race. With the huge field and some sketchy riding, being aggressive didn't seem to be worth the risk of crashing. I moved up to about halfway through the pack with 2 laps to go, and I made my move on the straight right before the last corner. I attacked on the right and then joined with the group that was attacking on the left. We came around the corner and I was probably about in 5th or 6th. The sprint was a decent length, and I had enough time to get up to speed and pass almost everyone for 2nd place. The finish was much closer than most of the races I've done, with me a half bike behind Beth in 1st and Juliette in 3rd a half bike behind me.

I was a little disappointed at my failure to move up through the pack during the race, but I guess that just means I need a little more practice and some more confidence. I was very pleased to get 2nd, especially considering that it's a miracle I was able to move up in the pack at the last minute. I wasn't feeling great during the race, I think mostly because I've been slightly short on sleep for the past week. I kept going to bed a little later than I should, as well as waking up ridiculously early for no reason.


Category: W1/2/3
Field Size: 30
Length: 45 minutes
Teammates: JVM, ME, Annie, Sam, Josie
Place(s): ?, back of the pack finish for me

I was feeling reasonably well recovered for the second race, since I had enough time to eat and rest some. I went into the race with no expectations, since not only was it a 1/2/3 race but my second race of the day. The pace of the race was very fast, much faster than the 3/4 race, and faster than any other race I'd been in. It made me happy though, because that was how I had thought racing was supposed to be like - working the whole time, keeping the pace up, people attacking all the time, that sort of thing. You know, like a race. Unfortunately, I was feeling a little tired, and I still wary of the corners, because it seemed to me that there was still a fair amount of sketchy riding going on, with a lot of bumping and tight corners. As a result, I stayed all the way in the back the whole time, though this time more on the outsides of the turns instead of the insides. Josie dropped out after a couple of laps, since she was also tired from the previous race. I saw Jen attacking a couple of times, so it was interesting watching how she would move up through the pack in order to come around and attack. There was also a lot more movement within the pack then there usually is in 3/4 races, so seeing that was kind of cool. By the end of the race, it was pretty much all I could do to hang onto the back and finish at the end of the pack. I didn't even see who was sprinting at the front.


There were a lot of crashes over the course of the day, and it seemed like there was a lot of sketchy riding going on in every field. I don't think there was a crash in my W3/4 race, but one person did go down (I didn't see what caused it) in the W1/2/3 race. I saw two crashes happen in the P/1/2 race, and I heard that there had been a number of crashes in the earlier races. I've also heard of many crashes in various races in the past few months, like some big crashes at Snelling, and more recently at Bariani (I saw pictures of huge pile-ups with half the field going down in two different fields), and even at Merco earlier. It's a little scary, and it makes me wonder if bike racing is always like this. It seems like this year has had an unusually high number of crashes, and I'm really hoping that this trend is going to change and people will stop crashing so much.