Race: Sequoia Crit
Date: 03/16/08
CAT: CAT 2
Field size: 27
Teammates: none
The course: A fast L shaped course with 5 lefts and one right. The pavement was pretty smooth except for the inside of the 4th turn.
The Plan: Coming into the race I was 7th in the 99 series so I wanted to move up as much as possible. I didn’t think I had a shot at first, but a top 3 was possible. I also wanted to win the race (I always do).
The Conditions: Fairly windy, but sunny and pretty cool. Perfect for a 50-minute crit.
The Race: 27 riders showed up to do this one. Now, to receive any awards for the 99 series you had to finish this race. I looked around at the start line and recognized a bunch of familiar faces. Seven BPG guys, 2 Mintys including the guy that won last week, and several others that I have seen the last couple weeks.
The pace started off like normal, kinda fast, but not too bothersome. On lap #2 I take the inside on one of the turns and another guy collides into me but both of us stay upright. He continues without a problem, but I dropped my chain. I was able to fix it after 10 seconds or so, but the group was already 300m up the road so I figured I’d take my free lap. I roll up to the pits and tell the ref that I collided with another rider and dropped my chain.
He says “no free laps for a dropped chain.”
I say “what? I collided with another rider!”
He says “a dropped chain is an adjustment problem so no free lap for you.”
I then politely ask him “how do you adjust a chain so that it doesn’t fall off when someone runs into you?”
He says “no free lap, but I’ll put you back into the race 1 lap down”
I say “should’ve told me sooner, I would have chased…” Adding another word to it in my head. Next time I’m falling over to get my free lap.
I get back in the race and I’m not too happy. I immediately go the front and attack. I ride off the front for 2.5 laps going 28mph, but I don’t make it anywhere as no one else knows that I’m lapped. I continue to attack/follow wheels so that I’m in 90% of everything that goes up the road with the hopes that we get a good breakaway and lap the field. Nothing is going away though because the BPG guys still can’t work together very well. I even won a set of tires in a prime, but they wouldn’t give them to me because lapped riders can’t sprint for primes. Bogus.
I don’t really know what else happened because all I could think about was the fact that I’m a lap down and have no chance at winning. I sat up before the last turn because I saw 15 women go down on their last lap and I knew the same thing was going to happen in our race and of course it did as 4 guys went down. I did get to watch Minty win another race though. He’s got some serious fitness right now.
Thoughts: I don’t really have any other than I still ended up in 5th for the 99 series and would have likely been 4th if not for the ruling. Just a crappy weekend of racing for me, but I’m already looking forward to Copperopolis.
Results: 22nd
Monday, March 17, 2008
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2 comments:
So next time I guess you ahave to fall down? What a crock....with so few riders in the race you'd think they'd want everyone they could get. Very disappointing action by yet another power mad referee. Your luck has to get better.... mine did.
Ya, next time I will just fall over, maybe catch myself with my hand and brush my leg on the ground. Friggin' stupid rules.
Later in the race a guy completely crashed himself out in one of the turns and he got a free lap.
Moral of the story: its better to be an idiot than unlucky.
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