Attack of the mad triathlete

Ouch. Crit racing hurts.

Thats pretty much my conclusion from this last weekend of mixing with the single sport cyclist enthuisiast this last weekend in Denton, Texas.

For the uninformed Wikipedia provides a very accurate definition of crit racing:

A criterium, or crit, is a type of bike race held on a short course (usually less than 5 km), often run on closed-off city centre streets. ...Events often have prizes (called primes, usually cash) for winning specific intermediate laps (for instance, every 10th lap).
Success in criteriums requires a mix of good technical skills — in particular, the ability to corner rapidly and sharply — and riding safely with a large group on a short circuit and exceptional fitness to attack other riders and repeatedly accelerate hard from corners.

Yup. Thats pretty much what it consists of. I did a total of 3 races. 1 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. Saturday was a junior open event including 15 miles of racing around a 1.1 mile loop. The pace was pedestrian most of the time as 2 guys had broken away and their teamates were blocking for them. Coming into the final turn everyone was strung out and I was in 7th position or so. I decided to go for it and blasted after of the curve at around 28 mph, I heard someone shout "GO Austin, GO!" as I flew by. Down the final stretch I was sitting again pushing around 32 mph, maybe a little higher. Ausin was gaining but not by enough. I crossed the line about half a bike length ahead of him for 3rd place.

On Sunday there was a junior open and a cat 4/5 race that I did. Junior open was first and this one was a rectangular course with 4 left hand turns and 2 long straights. Only 1k or 0.6 miles long. Corner #3 had some kind of chewed up road and some manholes that were a little dangerous. I placed 2nd in the junior race and got lapped in the 4/5.

About 50 people started the 4/5 race but everyone except about 15 guys got lapped. I was doing ok about 8 laps into it when going into corner #3 a guy crashed just in front and to the right of me, he came sliding at me and almost took my front wheel off. I barely missed him but the leaders, seeing their oppurtunity, punched it up the hill. I was chasing as hard as I could for about 3 or 4 laps but they stayed 10 seconds or so up on me. Finally I slowed up to get with a group of 4 guys coming up behind me. We worked pretty well together, I won a prime that they offered to us (a vest) and we finally got pulled with about 6 laps to go. Oh well. I was so wiped from both races I didn't really care. Plus I'd won myself a vest!

This weekend I'm looking forward to doing the Cinco Ranch Tri down around Houston area. Should be fun.

Jeff, Me, Ian. Waiting to start.

Cornering.

My computer is slow and these pictures are taking forever to load so I'm gonna call it quits. Ciao.