Originally Posted by
mattm
Yes, the "Alviso" crit on Tuesdays & Thursdays (year-round I think?)
I've never done Alviso, but I do the SJBC "Twilight" crit in the summer.
Neither are USAC sanctioned, both on open roads. The SJBC crit has a small fee and lap cards and minimal prizes, the Alviso crit has a jersey or something. The sad thing about both of those is that it's mostly medium-fast people, no heavy hitters for the most part. Small fields for both.
Isn't there also something up in Santa Rosa on Tuesdays?
There's also the "POO" (port of Oakland) ride, I think also on Tuesdays? Never done it, but it makes for good Strava titles.
All I know is Seattle's Seward Park Crit on Thursdays was (and probably still is) the ****. Not USAC sanctioned, but organized with primes, lap cards, etc. A lot of the local heavy hitters would show up, so it was basically a real race. And the road was more or less closed.
I miss Seward. 15$ buy in. Win a prime, get your money back. Do well in the race and you can turn a profit. I basically raced for free there my sophomore year of college by sandbagging in the c field with a teammate.
But yeah, it's a real race. The metier (hsp is probably what you remember them as) and Keller rohrback guys have a serious rivalry at that race. They use it to tune up team tactics for the weekend races and if you're not in on the plan, it's going to be a hard time coming over the top of the hill.