We had Chris, Derin, Paul and myself on hand for this race, which is 3/4 of a pretty strong squad. The plan was Derin and Paul do some break dancing, and I'd stick around to lead out Chris. We got warmed up ok except Chris's garmin died of despair from the way he has it mounted. The air was like the inside of a mouth. Our race was thunderstorm free, but others weren't.
GLV has a good squad, B2C2 has a ton of dudes but most of them raced the 4/5 already, and Sunapee has a strong showing. We roll off, and I don't remember a whole lot from the opening part of the race so we must have just dingled around a bit. There are primes, and the field just gets crazy stretched out through the downhill turns, further demonstrating how much you need to be in the top few wheels going in to perform well at the finish.
the aero slouch
Paul hops in a break, and though the pace is high I do my best to help foul up the chase. In a strong effort, Colin zooms down the twisties (he's good at this) and pulls hard down half the straight, wiggles his elbow, wiggles his elbow, wiggles his elbow, turns his head around, and I tell him I've got a man in the break. He loves it, he loves hearing this. The pack flops back together. Paul hangs out there for a long while with another break-mate or more (I dunno), then it's all back together after a prime lap or so.
With around five laps to go Derin sidles up on the uphill and delivers on his pre-race promise by going off the front in the final laps. The pack lets him go, and a couple others join him. They establish a small gap.
is this Derin going for it? sure I guess wasn't like i saw it lol
In the finest act of teamwork ever seen in cat 3 crit racing, Paul, Chris and I zip to the front and proceed to crap things up royally. I was 'pulling', and anyone who's been in a race with me knows I don't really do that very well or quickly. We went slow, folks. Real slow. The break was visible and within bridging distance several times, but nobody went for it. I kept nervously checking for where GLV was, thinking they'd soon deliver a spear of wattage intent on delivering their main guy to the line first.
Just before one lap to go, Colin, who is his team's sprinter but also uninterested in sprinting for 4th, struck again by leading down the descent and then put down a massive hero pull across the entire finishing straight and partway up the hill. It was a serious effort just to stay on his wheel, and I kept thinking how pissed he was going to be when the elbow waggle came. SURE ENOUGH. It sucks mightily to put in a bleeding eyeballs dig and then turn around to see three guys with a man in the break right behind you. He really loved it this time, loudly.
list of guys behind colin ready to do work:
I was gassed so did a kind of halfass attempt to position myself that didn't really work out. The pace heated up on the back straight, the GLV train never arrived, and Chris and Paul diced it up for 4th and 9th respectively.
I cross the line back in the wheels and thousands cheer for our flawless teamwork. Teens demand my autograph and then ritually burn whatever they play fortnite on, the ultimate sacrifice. Dutch companies with unpronounceable names get into unintelligible fights over who will be my title sponsor. My fellow racers congratulate me and ensure the conversation includes their excuse about why they weren't able to do teamwork as good. The race organizers decide there needs to be another podium for teamwork and MRC gets the whole podium. All these things, and much more, happened in my head as I was driving home.
Derin pulled 2nd out of the break for a well-earned podium, and Torin, who is physiologically capable of only winning crits that I have also reg'd for took the win.
Concord Crit 2019
Re: Concord Crit 2019
This pic sums up my feelings about racing in the rain (in a non-CX scenario). I was poorly positioned from the start and didn't follow the right wheels. On the plus side I lapped some people twice. And it was a good tempo workout, 277NP for 40mins, lack of a good warmup meant I only started feeling good when it was too late to be involved.