After a couple short recovery days in St. Louis with Lauren I drove to Ohio for a couple crits with some good money and pretty decent sized fields. The usual guys were there with pretty big squads. Kenda, Roadhouse, Aerocat and our team made up the majority of the numbers. Saturday's race in Hyde Park, Ohio was a twilight crit on a pretty cool course with a 180 degree turn in it. We didn't race terribly, but weren't agressive enough either. The 90 rider fields on this tight course lead to a lot of people getting popped off the back. The whiplash effect was so severe at the back that some pretty quality guys were falling off the pace. Coming down to the finish with one lap to go I was sitting in the top ten wheels through the round-about on Chad B. of Kenda and he was on Paul's wheel and Paul was following a pretty well known rider from a pretty well known local team. This rider is also pretty well known for his yelling at other riders in races and generally being an ass to people who are riding in an manor that he deems unsatisfactory. So when said rider thought it was a good idea to try to pedal his bike through this 180 degree corner and crash out a handful of the top 10 including himself, me, Paul and Chad... I found it quite ironic. But as they say, that's bike racing. Maybe said rider will worry less about others' riding and more about himself from here on out. So the team got some guys in the top 10 and just outside of it, but that little spill definitely hurt our end of the race situation.
Sunday was the traditional Sunday of Grandview crit with the nice little big-ring climb in it. We did 40 laps, for a total of 45 miles. It was pretty hot and most of the major players from the previous night were still around. Traditionally this race has broken up quite a bit and ended up with a big group of 10 or so off the front. I tried to be in all the promising moves and make sure I didn't miss the inevitable move that was going to go. The team did a much better job of being aggressive and instigating some of the moves and riding a much more offensive race. It took a while, but the break did go. It had lots of the big guys in it and I missed it initially but got across in a group of 3 shortly after. Andy and Dan from our team also came across after, the group ended up being 13 strong. We had 4 guys including Paul, so once I was recovered Dan and I went to the front and pulled the break around for the last 5 laps so that Paul and Andy could rest for the sprint. What we didn't know was Paul was cramping and it may have been a better option for us to work for someone else, but how often are you not going to work for Paul Martin? Anyway, Dan and I were toast and couldn't really sprint at the end. We ended up taking 7,9,10,11, and 17 on the day. It was nice to get 4 guys in the move, but we would have played it a little bit differently if we could do it again.
Now Greg and I are staying at Chartier's place until we leave for Fitchburg tomorrow morning. We're about to head out for a little tune up on our TT bikes and then do a whole lot of nothing for the rest of the day.
The next update should be from Massachusets, or somewhere on the highway along the way there. Wish me luck.
Photo's courtesy of Jeffrey Jakucyk
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