Great Lakes - Tonight Soldier Field Cycling series starts

Parking lot of Soldier Field. 30 min. cat4/5 crit racing.
Anyone else doing it? Seems like the weather is going to hold for today.
Yesterday riding 30 miles in the downpour was interesting.

I'm gonna show up, not sure if I'm gonna race. I live a 30 min easy ride away from the course.

I want to see a 6 corner parking lot crit course before I pay my money for such a risk. I'll give it a good review here when I get back.

god the weather is beautiful right now...

i was thinking about it but decided against it. I will be interested to see how it goes.

Sonofa*****.... 3 f'n crashes and 3 times I'm right behind them. The 2nd so close I could feel the body bounce against my rear wheel even so I dodged the wipe out.
3rd corner is a damn killer, all other turns are peachy. The 3rd corner is very tight, 3 guys next to each other can funnel through, maybe 4, so huge breaking by the pack in that corner.

I only raced for 20 min. after the third crash I just couldn't sprint back to the pack anymore and I had seen enough with the 3rd crash the dude surfing the pavement literally up side down on his helmet :eek: so I called it a day and watched the finish sprint.
I pulled out with maybe about 30 left out of the 75 riders.

But I'll be back. Didn't get life insurance for nothing, ya know.

Stats for my short stint (I noticed after 2 or 3 laps that I forgot to turn my powertap on, d'oh)

Entire workout (264 watts):
Duration: 13:26
Work: 213 kJ
TSS: 29.3 (intensity factor 1.144)
Norm Power: 280
VI: 1.06
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 5.561 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 878 264 watts
Cadence: 37 188 101 rpm
Speed: 15.3 29.5 24.8 mph

my teammate was one who crashed--didn't take anyone out with him. He was up in the top 5-10 and leaned into that turn too far, he clipped his pedal and went down on his side. He cracked his helmet into several pieces and when I got to him he was ok, except for that "you need a CT scan" look. He got one and is fine, but with a major headache.

I rode the course and it looked pretty safe and fun, except for that one turn. But there is always "one" place on any crit course that is tough/sketchy, this one is no exception.

The race organizer is one of the Kenda women (don't know her name) but she is racing badass herself. So, it is a good event and the few suggestions about the course marshaling were welcomed and I hope will be acted upon (no one know Dan was hurt till we all said: "hey, where's Dan?!?"--> sitting on the side of the course, holding his head). I've heard that they will change the course, just for variety, for each series so...we'll see.

They had a decent course, plenty of volunteers, a great turn out, good sponsors, and its right near home.

I like it.

register early! I decided too late that I wanted to race and it was full. There were 75 cat 4/5! +10-15 more on the wait list! Though there were only 20-25 cat 1-2-3s.

I think, like Kevin's Crits, this could be a great new series to try out new tactics.

But I'll be back. Didn't get life insurance for nothing, ya know.


:thumb:

Pics are up
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nivekk59/tags/soldierfieldcriterium/

Uah... I suck big time. Went OTF without wanting since I expected the field to go fast and furious. But nothing like that happened. So I was soloing in 2nd place behind another rider OTF. But after one lap I was gobbled up and spit out the back. So much for that :(

Entire workout (265 watts):
Duration: 13:08
Work: 209 kJ
TSS: 34 (intensity factor 1.247)
Norm Power: 305
VI: 1.15
Pw:HR: 24.18%
Pa:HR: 8.82%
Distance: 4.96 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1042 265 watts
Heart Rate: 99 181 170 bpm
Cadence: 41 198 94 rpm
Speed: 9.2 30 22.7 mph