Burlingame Crit Report

Race: Burlingame Downtown Criterium
Teammates: Rob MacNeill, Graham Simpson, Rand Miller, James Badia, Neil Harrington, Jeff Williams, Justin Fraga, Billy Crane, Peter Cazalet
Placing: 4th of 90+ for Fabrice, 9th for James

The Burlingame course is a 0.7 mile circuit with technical 90 degrees consecutive turns, an unusual finishing straight from a long sweeping turn, and bumpy pavement. All combined, it makes for a challenging course. The race is one of James' favorite races and he's had some huge results there from bunch finishes the last couple of years. So, our tactic for the day was to cover attacks, to protect James, and, in the event of a final sprint, to launch our sprinter from a good position!

From the start, there were a lot of attacks from Daniel Holloway (Slipstream U23) and Chad Gerlach (Amore-Vita), but all of them were covered by one of the green team. During first 20 minutes all these attacks didn't take a big advantage, but the field was straining from the constant chasing.

Sensing the fatigue from the field, Scott Zwizansky (Kelly Benefits) attacked and was join by two dangerous guys: Chad Gerlach and Chris Jones (Team Type 1). As these three guys were very dangerous I attacked too and joined them. With these 3 big guns, the speed of our group was high and the gap to the field was increasing lap after lap. For me, at the beginning of that escape I felt uncomfortable with the pace but got better as the finish drew near. With 3 laps to go the gap was around 30 seconds so it seemed likely the victory would be between us 4.

I tried to stay on Gerlach's wheel during the sprint. He launched it from a long way, which was perfect for me. I stayed with him and with 100 meters to go, I launched my sprint. Unfortunately as tried to pass him, I hit a pothole in the rode and my chain flew off the big ring. Luckily somehow I managed to not get catapulted off the bike. I tried to put my chain back on but there was no way. So, I was forced to coast the remaining meters across the line while the other 3 sprinted it out. Of course, that left me with fourth place. In the field sprint, James was shepherded by the team and secured a good 9th place.

I still don't understand what happened. All I can say is that I need to do some good Voodoo in order to get some luck this year. Anybody have a chicken to sacrifice?!

Thanks for reading
Fabrice