UCSB Race Weekend Pt. 2
Before I give my own (brief) take on last weekend's racing at UCSB, congrats to John on his great result in the RR -- and best wishes to Will for a speedy recovery.
Anyway, the C crit was pretty uneventful for me from a "results" standpoint, but I was pretty pleased with my own performance. I'm used to getting dropped pretty early into crits, which means that I still haven't yet finished one. However, I felt relatively strong in this race, and I was able to ride in the pack for about 16 laps before getting dropped -- everyone put the hammer down for the prime (sprint) laps, and by the time the second prime came around, I couldn't hang on. It was a great experience though, and nice to finally ride a crit in the pack for a while! One interesting story about the crit, though: it was held on a beautiful, flat course in the Isla Vista shopping district, with only two turns. For some reason, though, someone decided it would be a good idea to clear the road of debris -- by hosing it down with water! (Apparently, nobody realized that wet roads and crits don't mix well.)
The C road race was also a good deal of fun, despite the fact that I finished quite a bit down. The first lap was particularly amusing, since there was a very strong headwind, and while the people at the front were working hard to fight it, the rest of the peloton was supremely bored with the 13 mph pace. Basically, we spent a good twenty minutes talking about our Oscar picks (which we hoped we'd get home in time to watch), making fun of the people in the front, and yelling "slowing!" about every five seconds. Finally, the pace picked up as we got to the final climb, and I got dropped. I spent the rest of the race working together with a couple other dropped riders, which kept things a lot less boring than they would have been soloing off the back. In one final bit of drama, one course marshal abandoned his post on the final lap, and I ended up missing a turn and going off course! When I realized my mistake, I had to chase back hard to my remaining companion (who slowed up, fortunately), which took about 10 minutes of very hard effort. I finished about 10 minutes behind the peloton, fortunately missing the crash that ensued at their finish.
One final bizarre anecdote: as John mentioned, the feed zone was an absolute disaster. For some reason, they decided to place the feed zone on a narrow passageway right after a long descent, when everyone was going 30-35 mph. As I was passing bottles up to John and Morgan, another rider flubbed his bottle handoff and sent a full bottle of water rocketing into my shin at 30 mph. Needless to say, my leg is still somewhat rainbow colored from that one. :)
Anyway, the C crit was pretty uneventful for me from a "results" standpoint, but I was pretty pleased with my own performance. I'm used to getting dropped pretty early into crits, which means that I still haven't yet finished one. However, I felt relatively strong in this race, and I was able to ride in the pack for about 16 laps before getting dropped -- everyone put the hammer down for the prime (sprint) laps, and by the time the second prime came around, I couldn't hang on. It was a great experience though, and nice to finally ride a crit in the pack for a while! One interesting story about the crit, though: it was held on a beautiful, flat course in the Isla Vista shopping district, with only two turns. For some reason, though, someone decided it would be a good idea to clear the road of debris -- by hosing it down with water! (Apparently, nobody realized that wet roads and crits don't mix well.)
The C road race was also a good deal of fun, despite the fact that I finished quite a bit down. The first lap was particularly amusing, since there was a very strong headwind, and while the people at the front were working hard to fight it, the rest of the peloton was supremely bored with the 13 mph pace. Basically, we spent a good twenty minutes talking about our Oscar picks (which we hoped we'd get home in time to watch), making fun of the people in the front, and yelling "slowing!" about every five seconds. Finally, the pace picked up as we got to the final climb, and I got dropped. I spent the rest of the race working together with a couple other dropped riders, which kept things a lot less boring than they would have been soloing off the back. In one final bit of drama, one course marshal abandoned his post on the final lap, and I ended up missing a turn and going off course! When I realized my mistake, I had to chase back hard to my remaining companion (who slowed up, fortunately), which took about 10 minutes of very hard effort. I finished about 10 minutes behind the peloton, fortunately missing the crash that ensued at their finish.
One final bizarre anecdote: as John mentioned, the feed zone was an absolute disaster. For some reason, they decided to place the feed zone on a narrow passageway right after a long descent, when everyone was going 30-35 mph. As I was passing bottles up to John and Morgan, another rider flubbed his bottle handoff and sent a full bottle of water rocketing into my shin at 30 mph. Needless to say, my leg is still somewhat rainbow colored from that one. :)
posted by Ari at
11:48 PM
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