Originally Posted by Ttoc6

One of those days. Local crit actually happened by some miracle of the weather god. Rode out from a bike shop in SLC to the race track with a small group. "Crit" race on a race track, about a mile course, 2 easy pedalling corners and a hard hairpin with some **** in the apex. Realized it was going to be a good race for me when I go to the front, am sitting up and stringing the group out. Wait for some stupid **** to go on at teh front with people surging and counter about 10 minutes into the 45 minute race. One guy follows, but I lead it it for a whole lap before I look back. He's struggling, but i let him take a pull. He goes to the front and backs off too much, so I yell at him we need to go harder. He dropped after one more pull from me. Another good sign of my relative fitness.

I extend the gap out to 30 seconds, then a minute. The A group catches me and I'm in this weird place where I'm going about the same speed as them, but can't draft, so I smooth out some corners to let them get ahead and go around the stragglers. Gap is still sitting about a minute. I'm passing a lot of lapped riders and forced to take some funky lines because of it. Sprinting out a corner I feel that terrible feeling of a spongy tire. ****. 3 laps to go, fine. 2 laps to go, bad, hitting rim, had to unclip and tripod around the hairpin. 1 lap to go I have to stop and get a wheel, but the pits doesn't have any, so I take the slowest wheel change from a cat 4 watching. The small remaining chase passes me, and I have to solo it in for 7th. So ****ing frustrated. Played the race right, to my strength and had it won but **** luck finds it's way.

After the race I had to walk away from a lot of people just because I was frustrated. Found out a bit later that something like 15 flats happened due to the thorns that sat just outside the apex of the hairpin. FML.

On the positive, I got out with a buddy who double flatted out of the A field after the race and we rode up Emigration canyon and I rounded out the day for 3.5 hours, 65 miles and 200 TSS.

****.