This was going to be my last road race of the season. As was going to do the Bow 80, I decided to just do the crit to try and get enough points to upgrade. The race was in downtown Calgary by Eau Claire Market and I’m sure getting the city to buy into this was no easy feat. The course was pancake flat with 2 long straightaways and shorter than any other crit course I had done. After walking the course during one of my lunch hours, I knew right away it would be a really fast race.
After getting everything ready, watching the kids race and running a bunch of laps, I got to the start line…but apparently I got there a little too late and had to seed myself in the second row. Because of issues with light, we had our race reduced from 35min + 3 laps (roughly about 40 laps) to 20 laps….so it was going to be really fast.
The first lap started a little slower then as we had a pretty big group but it soon settled into a double file peloton. I was near the back on the first lap but it we were on closed roads with lots of room to move. As always whenever a gap was starting to open up I went around the packs to bridge up to the faster group.
With about ten laps remaining there was a group of two riders that had gone off the front and were about a half lap ahead of the rest of the group. With 7 laps remaining and a 20 second lead on us, Andrew launched the first attempt to bridge. No one followed him and I missed his attack so he ended coming back to the pack. 6 laps remaining and the MCs said there was a 9 second lead on the peloton. This is where I decided to do a suicide attack to try and reel the riders back in. I pulled out and went to the front of the pack and went off the front to see who would a follow. A couple riders got on my wheel to help me bridge but the rest of the peloton didn’t seem interested in helping us.
4 laps to go we managed to reel in the 2 riders that were off the front and we were a pretty big pack again. As we rounded into the final straight I tried to get myself in good position for the last sprint. Everyone started going right after corner 4 but I was trying to time it so I could pass the people that went too early. There were riders spread out all across the road and I wasn't able to sprint effectively past all the riders. I ended up finishing with the main pack but I knew right away I had not placed in the top 7 which is what I was aiming for in this race. I burned my last match at the front trying to bridge and just didn’t have enough for the final sprint.
Result: 12th
I finished up in a group off 22 riders so it was pretty much a toss up for my placing. I still had a really good race and was able to reel back in the two riders off the front who were almost guaranteed 1st and 2nd place. Andrew was able to time his sprint right for second which bumped him up to Cat 4 but I’m sure I’ll be able to get my remaining points next season.
*Photo credits to all the photgraphers who posted links up on the Speed Theory blog.
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