Wente Crit Report

James recently led the boys in an active race at Wente crit. Below is his report of the action.

Full results here

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Wente Vineyards Criterium

Men's Pro 1/2

Teammates: Jono, Beebe, Neil, Rand, Graham

Placing: 11th of 100

After a lot of waiting around due to multiple crashes in the women's field, everyone seemed lethargic from waiting in the hot sun. I arrived to the race early, got a good warmup on the trainer along with the teammates. The course was the same as always, completely flat wide roads with 4 corners with s-bends on the two backside straights. There was a significant head wind on the wide finishing straightaway. We had our team meeting on the grass under the trees, thanks to Graham the entire the guys who don't have radios were supplied with a radio and headset. The plan was pretty simple, everyone would share the load of covering breaks, I was only going to cover breaks during the beginning of the race. Rand was to ride aggressive like he always does and attempt to establish some breaks. Liza from TIBCO agreed to be our spotter for the day and did a great job updating the team and giving encouragement over the radio, she has obviously done that sort of thing before.

The race was originally scheduled for 60 minutes but was cut short to 50 minutes by the promoters due to the delays in earlier races. The race started out really fast and stayed fast throughout. Immediately attacks started happening, and everyone did their share of covering. Beebe was in a break for a while that looked solid but got eventually came back.Soon after being brought back Beebe was pushed into the curb and laid it down. He's OK but his bike was too crooked to get back onto the race., Neil and Jono were active near the front as well. Rand put in an awesome attack that opened up a huge gap. The Webcor/AV team made their way to the front to do a little blocking but the peloton was having none of that and pulled it back. I spent some time bridging up to a breakaway with Daniel Holloway but we were eventually pulled back by the field as well. It seemed like nothing would stick.

Going into the final laps the race was getting faster and faster. With about 3 to go I found myself on Neil's wheel and let him know I was there, I rode on his wheel for about a lap and noticed we weren't moving up from our spot about 25th or so. It looked like Neil was pretty gassed from his efforts in the race so I decided to abandon his wheel and start moving up on my own. Coming into the final turn I was in maybe 15th spot. The long sprint started early just after the final right hand turn and before the bend to the finish. I was able to pick off a few guys for 11th place, but the guys in front of me were really strung out into the headwind and wasn't able to pass anyone else.

In summary this was a good race for the team, we set out to do something and we all contributed and did what we said we were going to do. The only thing that could have gone better for me was for Neil and I to communicate toward the end of the race about how we were feeling. Neil and I discussed this along with the rest of the team post race and I am sure it will start coming together more and more as the season goes on. Our team is growing and I am excited to continue racing with my teammates.

Beebe did a great job getting into a breakaway, Rand was rode like a crazy man as always and attacked to open up the largest gap of the day, Neil rode very strong and showed he can be a contender in his new category. A great day of racing and team bonding.

Thanks for reading,

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James