Originally Posted by
Phatman
That's super unusual, and the complete opposite of every cat 4/5 race I've ever done. Then again, the last 4/5 race I did was in 2010, so things might've changed since then. As for the technicality of the course, I've actually found that course with tight turns or bumpy pavement tend to lead to slightly safer races since it forces a selection earlier, though if its too tricky (Naval Academy Crit anyone?) then crashes will happen on the technical features. There was a race that used to happen every year in Greenville, NC that was flat, with four corners around downtown and it was a festival of crashing. Very impressive display of crashing abilities.
Yeah - I do think it was unusual that the race didn't start out super hard. I was just pointing out that there are always exceptions. And maybe it has to do with my kids fitness - he is pretty strong on short efforts, but fades on anything longer than 5 minutes or so. Maybe the early surges weren't that bad for him, but it caught up to him later in the race. Dunno. Another unusual thing about this cat 4/5 crit is that a rider broke away in the first few laps and soloed most of the 30 minutes to win. He is a really strong triathlete that has done this previously in Cat 4 races. The sprint almost caught him, but he held on to win by a wheel.