Monday, March 3, 2008

UCVC had a great showing in the Men's D races this weekend. Bernard, Chris, Jesse, and I, suited up for Saturday's road race around Heritage Lake and Sunday's crit. For Chris and I, it was our first ever collegiate race. Now we're all hooked! It wasn't long after Saturday's race before we were all planning our future team practices and drills. Admittedly, this type of excitement could have served us well had come a few months ago, but it's hard to think about racing with temperatures hovering in the single digits. Now, with good weather on the horizon and great teammates we'll be improving each week.

The race organizers made the first lap neutral in order to run a basic skills clinic. This was a fantastic idea on paper, but was well...a bit less polished in execution. In any case, we went over some paceline drills and etiquette, as well as the line rule--a lesson that would unfortunately later cost the entire Men's A field its collegiate points. It was nice to ride the course and get a chance to scope out some of the twitchier riders (one of who managed to cross wheels and crash during the practice lap... sigh) beforehand.

We returned to the start, and with only two real laps, things started very fast and stayed fast. The UCVC men had pretty bad positioning at the start (something we rectified in the crit), so for at least the first four or five miles we fought hard to navigate the field and improve our positioning. The lead pack shelled riders pretty quickly, but Bernard, Jesse, and I held on, and worked our way forward. We were a bit too spread out to work together effectively, and the pack was a bit of a cluster, so we were individually focused on (a) not crashing and (b) getting to the front. The course was rolling hills and really fun. Some of the field seemed a bit tentative on the downhills, and perhaps caught in the wrong gear on the uphill section, so the pack tended to bunch in the valleys. Getting forward would make this less of a problem. I caught up with Bernard, and then worked my way forward to Jesse, who was in the front ten riders.

As we rounded the first lap, Jesse and I were in the top 10 or 15 riders and we could hear the cheers from the rest of UCVC team. Thanks guys!! There were some attacks off the front early in the final lap, but the pack bridged each time. Jesse and I had pretty good position, and we talked strategy for the final push. My legs felt pretty good, and I thought I might be able set Jesse up for a final sprint. Jesse wasn't sure. We made a push to gain a better position, but by this point Jesse, having earlier been trading pulls off the front was pretty run down. About midway through the second lap, someone attacked up the left side, and the pack split as we caught him. With only one hill left, I saw an opportunity to get to the front and I attacked up the side. This was a stupid decision. There was a solo rider out front. I caught his wheel and he sat up, letting the pack catch us. We traded pulls, and wore ourselves out. When the final attacks started, I had nothing. I would have probably finished further back, but a De Paul rider crossed wheels next to me, and took out a few guys from the chase group. I got lucky and escaped, and then I did what I could to muster a final sprint to the finish. Jesse, having navigated around the crash, finished shortly thereafter, with Bernard not too far behind.

Chris, who had been dropped initially, was still trucking. Bernard, Jesse, and I found him about a mile from the finish, and cheered him on to an awesome final sprint that put the three of us to shame.

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