Memorial Day Crit Report

James' report from Memorial Day is below

Memorial Day Criterium (Morgan Hill)
Men's Category 1/2
Teamates: Tore, Bo, Rand, Jeff, Neil, Chris, Graham, Jono, Aroussen, Peter C., Bob Parker
Placing: ~17th of 90ish

This was the first race I have done with this many teamates. In total their were 12 of us in the Green at the the pre race meeting. There were many other teams with large numbers as well including, Lombardi, BPG, Z team, and others. In addition Rock Racing had two riders show up and Daniel Holloway and Eric Wohlberg were there.

The course is flat with 3 corners and a long sweeping straightaway on the backside, wide road, moderate pavement (some cracks and some bot dots)

Our team plan was to 1) make sure no break went off without a green rider in it. 2) Ride aggressive and try to start our own breakaway if possible. 3) If it comes down to a sprint finish try to organize a leadout train for the sprinters.

The race started out fast and stayed fast the entire 75 minutes. There were some brief times during the race where people swarmed and it slowed but this never lasted long. The avg. speed for the day was 28mph. With the flat course and large field, the race didn't feel exceptionally hard in my opinion. For the entire race there were multiple attacks going off, with all of the riders from Webcor/Alto Velo contributing to the effort of establishing and/or chasing breaks as needed. There were some primmes that tempted me to sprint, but I decided to not go for any. In short, the Webcor/Alto Velo team rode the race perfectly all the way up to the point of 3-4 laps to go. Rand and I were sitting at the front waiting for the leadout train or some sort of support and nothing ever materialized. During the last lap on the backside of the course I thought I caught a lucky break and found myself 4th wheel behind 3 BPG riders, (Perfect positioning given the circumstances). My luck ran out when the BPG rider on the front started soft pedaling going into the last corner, by the time I figured out what was going on I checked over both shoulders really quick and we were already getting swarmed. I was forced to hold my line and watch the soon to be podium finishers ride right by me. I coasted into the final turn, got out of the saddle on the final straight and held onto something like 17th place.

In summary, I was happy that so many guys showed up to race. We executed our plan perfectly throughout the race and showed that we were a dominant team. With this many guys I would have liked to see more organization in the final laps. There is still a lot of racing left in the season and I hope that the team can learn from the experiences and continue to improve. Congrats to the recently upgraded Cat 2's on finishing a tough race.

--
James