Race #3 Seward Park, Thursday, June 3rd- I had raced on Tuesday at Pacific Raceway, down the escape route points-per-lap in the cold, driving rain, so I was a little tired while riding over to Seward Park this night, but the weather was nice so my spirit was lifted. I had left work early (another bonus!), since the 4/5 field was to race at 4:30, and rode the 8 miles from work to the park to get in a warm up. There was no pre-registration for this race so I made sure to get there plenty early in case it sold out quickly, especially with the good weather. One of the nice things about racing at Seward is they have crits there every Thursday night during the spring and summer, so people know not to park their cars in the park on Thursdays. This means the course is immediately open for warming up on, so after registering I ditched my bag by a tree and started doing laps. The course is pretty simple at Seward Park. It consists of a downhill, a flat stretch, an uphill, and then a 140 degree corner into the downhill again. They alternate which way they run in every week, and for the Cascadia Crit they were running it counterclockwise with the start/finish line halfway across the top of the course, by the natural amphitheatre. Last time I raced the course in this direction, a crash happened in front of me caused by two guys veering into each other as the pack bunched up before heading up the hill, and I went down in it, being unable to avoid the guys on the deck. I was determined to not let this stress me out, though, and focused on staying loose and positive.
Not many racers were there and I wondered if it wasn't going to have a low turn-out due to the early start time, but by the time 4:25 rolled around, I was taking my spot beside 82 other racers (75 cap limit, huh?). Brad, who almost missed the cutoff, Tim 2, Chad and Greg were there in the line up as well. All of us Cycle U guys ended up lining up towards the back, except Greg who had his head up when they called us up and got right on the front row. We weren't too concerned, though, because we figured we would have plenty of time to move up. As the race got underway, this held true and we all surged towards mid-pack as the chafe fell off the back. My race was a bit frustrating because I could move up to the front but had problems staying there. I flubbed the sharp corner almost every lap, trying to take it on the inside repeatedly, getting pinched and having to scrub all speed, and then having to sprint back towards the front down the hill. This meant I was recovering on the flat on the bottom before going back up the hill, so when I should have been using my good climbing form to move up on the hill, I found myself just trying to hold my spot before dropping back on the corner again. It was really starting to wear me out by mid race, and then a few guys went down in the corner, with me behind it. I moved clear of the carnage quickly but really had to get on the throttle to get back up into the group. Another match burned too soon. This trend continued for the next 15 minutes and then it was down to the last 2 laps. Going into the hill I really felt my legs doing all they could just to get the pedals over and I slipped back off the back. I held on for the remainder of the race without losing much more ground and came across the finish line about 20 seconds behind the leader. I was happy to have finished and stayed in the pack, but I was also bummed to have not been able to dial that corner in like I had when I had raced here before. Could have been trying to go into it with more than 80 other people instead of the 30 that usually show up to the weekly race. Could have been that I was more tired than I thought. But whatever it was, I did finish and got 54th and 35 more series points. Other Cycle U finishes were Tim 2 at 16th, Chad at 18th, Brad at 23rd, and Greg at 49th. So at least we all finished and none of us went down! I hung out for a while after our race and watched the Masters and the Women's 1,2,3 race and drank a beer with Geoff from Baron Bicycles, who was there trying to sell raffle tickets to win one of his bikes. As I was riding home later, I bonked super hard and barely had enough gas to get back up through Coleman Park headed home! But the next day was Friday and no race, so the plan was to rest and get mentally ready to tackle the next race in the series, which was to be the infamous Ballard crit on Saturday.
Race #4 Ballard, Saturday, June 5th- I was really nervous before this race. Ballard, or the Second Ascent Twilight Criterium, is infamous in every sense of the word. The course features rough, bumpy pavement, bricks, a false flat finishing stretch, manhole covers, a fast, off-camber turn down a slight hill, and guys really bring their "A" game to this race because it is so popular. It also boasts a high turnout of spectators who will laugh at you if you really suck! Almost every bicycle racer in Seattle has either crashed or known someone who has crashed here, and the chances of that happening were exponentially higher when it was raining. So I was a bit relieved that the weather for the day was 70 and sunny, but all the other conditions had me on pins and needles all day. With this on my mind I headed over to Ballard a few hours before the race to scope out the course and try to settle my nerves. Brad, Tim 2, Greg, and Dale were all coming out to race as well, and we ran into Brandon, a new guy on the Cycle U team who came out hoping to get a spot on the start line. The race had sold out earlier that week but there was always the hope that someone registered wouldn't show up and you'd get in. We all rolled around together for a while to get a feel for the course. The start was on bricks halfway up the slight hill on the front stretch. From there it went about 200 meters to turn #1, a left-hander with a nasty dip in the center of the road that would buck you right out of the saddle if you were unfortunate enough to be forced into it. The road then turned downhill to turn #2, the fast off-camber corner I mentioned earlier. This gave way to a flat burn down to Shilshole to turn #3, which put you back onto rough brick and manhole covers. Turn #4 was more mellow, and you could pedal through it, which was great since you needed to carry speed out of it for the false flat back to the finish line. I followed Brad through the course because I knew he could find the clean lines and my plan for the race was to just grab his wheel and try to hang on to it. Of course, picking a line in warm up and actually being in the right place to take that line during a race are worlds apart, but I still thought it might help. As we rolled around I thought to myself that with all of the brick and rough pavement I would ever want to race this course in the rain!
And then it was time to line up, and Phil, the race official, did the call up for our 5 series leaders. The rest of us rolled up to the start line behind them and I actually got a good starting position at the front with my other 4 teammates (Brandon had not gotten in). 40 minutes were put on the board and then the whistle was blown. Go time! The dry road and warm weather must have really warmed up guy's muscles because the first few laps were really fast, but I was doing well, cornering smooth and not having to sprint too hard out of the corners.
I was holding position around 25th wheel. Brad began to move up and I went with him, but that guy is super quick and where he could swing wide on the outside of a corner and have enough speed to move up and get tucked back into the slipstream, I would get hung out to dry and move back quickly. So I went back to where I was and waited for an easier opportunity to move up. It was about 6 laps in when the carnage started. Coming into turn 2, a guy skipped his inside pedal trying to pedal through it and took out another guy. That guy took out another guy and so on until 5 or 6 people were down. I was about 35th wheel at the time and on the inside. The crash happened on the outside, but with everyone veering left to get around the crash, my clean line suddenly became a parking lot. By the time I got through the mayhem the race had shattered. Now, I've seen races on television where something happens to one of the racers: he gets a flat or a mechanical or crashes, and he calmly waits to get a new tire or bike or some gauze, and then he calmly gets back on his bike and spends the next several minutes calmly moving back up to the pack, dosing his effort to not run out of energy in the chase before reconnecting with the pack. Phil Liggett will usually comment on how smart they are racing and how professional they are acting. Well, that wasn't me at all. I freaked out! I didn't want to get dropped when I felt so strong! So I tried to sprint back to the pack at max effort in one shot. I passed guys in a panic who I could have worked with to move back up. Of course this didn't last too long before I got tired and had to ease up. I had the pack in my sights but just couldn't pull them back by myself. Eventually I fell into a strong chase group and we began working together and I was able to recover, especially since I was intentionally not taking long pulls at the front. I was still thinking about trying to bridge back to the pack and knew I'd need to be fairly rested before trying to drop my group and go across.
22 minutes into the race, we came around turn #4 to see a racer ahead of us crash to the pavement. It looked strange to me because I had not seen him collide with anything or person and there seemed to be no reason for him to hit the pavement. Race officials ran onto the course to flag us around the downed rider, who wasn't moving and was lying face down. We came around again and the officials stopped the race. Our chase group was stopped 50 feet behind the peloton, and we couldn't see what was going on with the crashed racer, but we heard they were bringing in some EMT to get the guy some medical attention. This took about 15 minutes with no one knowing what had happened or how he was doing. All we knew was that he was on the First Rate Mortgage team. After they pulled the guy off the course (he was able to feebly wave to crowd as EMTs carried him off on a stretcher, to much applause), the officials got the race back underway, with our group getting a 15 second delay to the peloton. We blasted off in hot pursuit and we immediately went into fast rotations, but it became clear that there were a few guys in the group who weren't that strong and gaps were starting to open in our group. With 8 laps to go I made a move and launched off the front to try to bridge, but I went to late in the straightway before corner #1 and overcooked it, almost running against the curb. On the brakes and back into the pack, which at least was a bit smaller now due to the stronger guys dropping slower racers.
I tried to recover and sit in as much as possible, and 3 laps later I went again, this time judging my distance to the corner better and getting an immediate separation from my group. But as I came around turn #2 the peloton was turning corner #3 and I knew I'd never get across that, so I eased up and let the group catch back on. At that point I knew we weren't gonna' catch up so I started to focus on just putting in hard efforts to at least keep racing until the end of the race, but with 3 laps to go it looked like we were going to get lapped so Phil pulled our group. Damn. At least we were at the finish line so I got to see Brad sprint for 6th place. I was given 46th for my effort and 49 series points. Tim 2 hung on strong and got 16th place. Greg finished just a bit off the back of the pack and placed at 38th. I was somewhat pleased with the race except for my lapse of good judgement and racing smarts. Undoubtedly some of those guys I had sprinted past in my panic and kept their wits about them and gotten back to the main field by dosing their efforts and blah,blah,blah. Still, this was one of my better showings at a crit and I had made a stir in the crowd when I attacked my group, twice. And I had impressed my wife (big bonus!). After the race we hung out for a bit and talked about our race. Another thing I like about crits is how social they are. Since it's pretty spectator friendly, people just hang out all day, like at a 'cross race. So I ended up watching the Pro-1-2 race later that night, being amazed by the guys in the field who can continually attack the field lap after lap and still have fuel in the tank to sprint for the finish. I finally headed home to get some sleep for the next day's battle, which would be fought on the battlefield known as Boat Street.
(thanks to wheelsinfocus.com for the photos. next post will wrap the series up with Boat Street and Tacoma. thanks for reading.)
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