bostongarden

Where are the directions to the party posted?

Congrats Shovel and AJet. The racing at the NSG in Cleveland exceeded my expectations; it was good competition and I met a lot of pleasant people. And, I caught up with an old (no pun intended, hee hee) teammate from my former team in the ATX who was racing in the 60-64s.

40K
It was wet the whole way. But, when the rain poured in lap 2, it made conditions challenging for me because I could hardly see in front of me! (Oh, and I had to cleverly manage my cork pads on carbon 404s as it's generally tricky when you have near zero stopping power -- I'd effectively ridden this combo in the rain a few times before and knew what to expect). The rider who won both the TTs and both RRs took off early. Someone bridged to him. A chase put down a good effort and we caught them during the up after the turnaround that marked the start of lap 2. I recall feeling some pain and concern about getting dropped as we were closing in on the apex. I dug in, spun it up and stayed in contact; phew! From that point, my key thought was "stick." As I stuck through each acceleration, my mind locked in and focused on getting through the next surge. After the climb that started lap 4, I was desperate to see better. So, I dropped my shades down to the bottom of my nose and peered over the the shade's bridge. Voila, I could see. I kept them down the rest of the way.

Fast forward to the end game. One comes off a fast descent from the highway onto an exit ramp that soon turns up, with a right turn onto some uppy stuff (4%? 5%? 6%?) for about 200m, and then another right turn for the final flat to the finish that was about 250-300m. As the 50-54s and 55-59s were mixed at this juncture, I wasn't perfectly sure where I was in the scheme of things. So, my approach was simple: ride hard and go around people when you can. I took the inside/curb line off the exit ramp and hit it. That was a good decision as there was a crash just to my left, away from the curb! The uppy part hurt and I went around some folks; my sprint was good for about the first 100m of it. Then, I ran out of juice (wattage was down to lower 300s and upper 200s) and lots of folks were passing me. I finished in 12th. All good for this crit racer.

20K
My preplan for this race was to stay near the front for as long as I could and to not follow the 40k winner if he rides away as such an effort would likely break me. Indeed, gold and silver winners did break away. I was in the top 5-7 of the chase for most of the race and until the turn for the final sprint. Then, soon after I turned for the sprint, I hit a wall. It felt like 10 or so people passed me. I finished in 17th place. I am satisfied.