2014-01-25 Bicycle Haus Criterium - M55+ - 23 starters; 1 mile flat course on an auto-track:
This was chapter 2 of the anyone but the sprinter saga. It still amazes me how many people say "I don't care where I finish, so long as he doesn't win." Clear lesson in Karma. He's not a bad guy, just emits hubris. So talking to the ex-teammate ("K) who sacrificed himself to help launch my current teammate to victory last week, it was clear my best contribution was to attack early. I was then to try and lead out a teammate if things were together for the sprint. I attacked lap 2, opening up 30-40m, I looked back and realized I was getting no respect whatsoever. So I did what I could and stayed away for a lap or so then settled in to recover. My attack served its purpose, as K got a break going with three other guys. One of them was the sprinter, but at the finish of a prime lap, he just rode away from the other three, who couldn't hold his wheel. Must be his new Propel (lol). After that, the three lost a bit of their enthusiasm, but were hanging onto about a quarter lap gap, so I made it my job to bring them back, and we did, setting up a pack sprint for second. Unfortunately, my teammate didn't make it up through traffic, and I didn't think I could go back, drag him up, and then do any lead out, so I just stretched the pack out from 1.5 laps to the last ~300m, at which point I was swarmed, finishing way back. Had I to do it over, I would have gone back and gotten the teammate to the front, then let him do what he could. Sprinter was on the podium, but second instead of the top spot, and a key contributor won. So that's a success in my book.
2014-01-25 Bicycle Haus Criterium - M35/55+ - 60 starters; 1 mile flat course on an auto-track:
As our Cat1 team captain put it, "This was the largest and hardest masters race I've done in Arizona." 7 Cat1's, 5 of them only 35+. Our few pro's were missing, but almost all of our other big guns were there. Averaged almost 27mph. I basically hung on for dear life; mostly tail gunning, but every now and then moving up some. And I did hang on, until 1.5 to go when the only other 60+ guy in the pack fatted inside of me, and I backed way off to let him get to the outside safely. Pushed hard to try and get back to the pack, but didn't quite make it, trailing in a bit behind - DFL, but happy to have finished, unlike 7 of the other starters. Great news though, was a 6 man break got away pretty early, and it was all 35+ but a teammate. The break split into two 3 man groups, and the pack never came close despite the announcers increasingly extreme exhortations, like "Are you going to timidly accept fate, our are you going to rise to achieve your destiny!?!" Kid cracks me up. He is awesome, and knows the potential of just about about every racer in Arizona. But even $170 Spy sunglasses primes couldn't get us to put in the effort to chase those guys down. One of them averaged 320w for the break. Given the on-off nature of crit's, that's up there. And too many teams represented, including of course, ours.
Anyway, teammate got his second 45+ win of the year, out of 3 races, so: total success! We also got 4th and 6th. Team is rocking' it so far.