Not So Underground Crit - Cat 5
I spent most of last season trying to get a feel for bike racing and spent the offseason trying to build a bigger engine. I won a local crit in October which boosted my confidence going into this one.
Nothing too exciting happened for most of the race. I focused on staying near the front and near the edge of the pack so I could catch the occasional free ride. Basically just tried to not do more work than necessary. I heard a few crashes, but they were all behind me - definitely a benefit of the top 15 positions.
Going in, my plan was to follow any move in the last two laps since I felt pretty good about my ability to sustain an effort. If that didn't happen, I planned to launch an early sprint just after the second to last corner. Nobody made any moves and, on the last lap, I found myself at the front of the pack a lot earlier than I wanted to be. I didn't want to go quite that early, but also didn't want to get swallowed up by a fast-moving train (and lose good position), so I tried to bait someone into attacking by surging a couple times. Nobody bit, but we had eaten up enough of the course that I wasn't going to get overtaken on all sides. I drifted back one position just before the second to last corner, attacked hard exactly where I wanted, and finished well ahead of the pack for the win.
It's just cat 5, but I've been happy seeing improvements each race. I'll be upgrading after next week and kind of expect to get my ass kicked in the 4s - we seem to have a lot of strong racers in that category out here.