Race Report: Pacific Grove Criterium

This past weekend marked the return of a former Bay Area Classic: the Pacific Grove Butterfly Criterium. This is a cool little race that used to be a national level event. It was even won by Greg Lemond on a couple of occasions in the late 70's. It's been absent from the calendar since the 80's but it's back and hopefully will return again for years to come. A 4-man Webcor/Alto Velo squad contested the P12 main even. We did well covering attacks in an animated race that eventually came down to a sprint. Our guy James Badia netted a nice 4th place. Below is his report.

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Race: Pacific Grove Criterium

Duration: 75 minutes

Teammates: Rob MacNeill, Matt Beebe, Graham Simpson, Steve Jones (honorary teammate who was our course scout on the radio)

Placing: 4th of 40ish

(Photo from Mark Nakamura's Flickr Page)

This is was my first time racing this course. For the last 20 + years the race has been in hybernation. When I heard they were running a race in downtown Pacific Grove I was very much looking forward to it. The pre reg numbers were small but at the start line I noticed a lot of good crit riders from the Nor Cal scene. Cal Giant, Lombardi, Clif, Form Fitness and other teams were present with multiple guys. In addition there were a few of the local solo guys who usually do well in crits.

This was Steve Jones' first time doing radio for the team. I want to give him a big thanks, he did an awesome job supplying us with the information we needed. Steve, anytime you want to come out we could always use the help!

My plan was to race aggressive and try to establish a breakaway. If it came down to a field sprint I wanted to be in the mix.

The official decided to start the race with a neutral lap and blow the start whistle as we came across the line from our first lap. Well, I am not sure I would call the first lap neutral as Dave McCook went to the front and started drilling it. We were lined our for the "neutral" lap and still in a long line when we came across the line. The official decided to blow the whistle anyways so the race was on. From there it was super fast for most of the race. About 3 laps in I found myself somewhere around 3rd wheel when a prime bell rang. I stayed 3rd wheel until turn 3 where I put in a small attack thinking I would go for the prime and establish some separation. It worked, I had a good gap, won the prime and stayed off for another 1/2 lap or so until the pack caught me. I was reabsorbed into the pack where I drifted back for a few laps to recover. During this time Rob did a great job up at the front of the race covering moves so I could relax a little. After a few laps of recovery Graham gave me a tow back up toward the front of the race. All of the teams were attacking like crazy. Rob and I were both following moves and making sure the green team was represented.

The officials had some confusion as to how long the race was. at about 30 minutes in they were announcing 12 minutes to go. That lasted a few laps and then they sorted it out and were back to the planned 75 minute schedule. With about 20 minutes to go, a break slipped off the front with every team represented but ours. I attacked the field, and spent about 1.5 laps bridging up to the breakaway. When I got there I was gassed and skipped a pull to recover. This disrupted the rhythm and our breakaway ended up coming back. My memory from this point in the race on is a little fuzzy. At some point there was a large group of 10-12 riders that had maybe 8 seconds on the main group. They held this for some time. Rob did a great job on the front bringing this gap down. Eventually this gap was closed (mostly from Rob's doing) and the group was together.

At this point there was about 5 laps to go. For the final 5 laps I was maintaining a position of about 10th wheel. Guys were starting to get more aggressive and pushy in the corners in these final laps so you really had to fight to maintain position at the front. I hung in there and with a little radio encouragement from Rob on the final lap (I'll leave out the specific phrases for now) I made a final push on on bottom straight to get better position for the sprint.

There was a big squeeze into turn 3 where I gave up a few spots. I put in a hard effort out of turn 3 to get better position. I took the outside of turn 4 and sprinted up the snow fencing and started blowing by people. In the end I would cross the line in 4th place. My finishing speed and power felt better than it has all year.

I found out after the race that I had won a 2nd prime. I don't really remember when it was but it must have been one of the times I was off the front solo trying to get breakaways to stick.

I would recommend this race for everyone if it is on the calendar next year.

Thanks for reading

James