I was nervous heading into the DePauw races this weekend. I was to be racing in the B category where I had gotten dropped in nearly every race last year. I was hopeful that I could make improvements. On Saturday, we had a 32 mile road race over rolling hills around Heritage Lake. The course proved to be fun and fast, but with large contingents from IU, Madison, and Purdue no breaks were able to get off of the front. As I was riding alone, I decided to sit near the front to watch the action and wait for the sprint. I was in around 12th in the final few miles when the attacks began to go. I remained patient, slowly moving up from wheel to wheel until the final half-mile. I moved into the top five and two IU riders out came by. I jumped in behind them, leaving myself in third wheel as we bolted for the finsih. When the first rider pulled off the front I jumped to try to go around, but was unable to finish the move and got nipped by another rider at the line to finish 3rd.
On Sunday, we raced a 1.25 mile criterium with strong cross winds on the long stretches. As they shortened the Women’s B race, I wasn’t able to finish my warm-up and got off to a slow start. After 3-4 long painful laps I was able to make it to the front with warm legs. Unfortunately, by the time I got there the winner was already off up the road, leaving the field to sprint for second. The race proved to be hard with lots of attacks going. I worked to pull back a few threatening breaks and the rest of the field remained together with a few laps remaining. With one lap to go Aaron from Northwestern flew off the front. It looked promising so I bridged up with three other riders to form a solid break. We were opening a gap until Aaron crossed wheels with Ball State rider who was taking the pull and went down. It was a bummer as he had patrolled the front of the field the entire race and created the decisive move. The crash cut our gap in half and left us with less power to stay away from the field. I took a hard pull trying to re-energize the break. Into the final straight I was second wheel and trying to be more patient so that I could come around in the final sprint. I broke for the line with about 100 m to go, passing the other member of the break, but two riders from the field beat me to the line. I finished 3rd in the field and 4th overall. Had I known the field was so close I should have jumped sooner...
Overall, it was an encouraging weekend of racing. It is great having lots of new supportive teammates. I learned a lot by being able to ride in the front and contest the sprints. Hopefully, my sprint will improve in the coming weeks! The season is shaping up to be lots of fun, hopefully we can get more new riders out to race in the coming weeks!
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