Sunday morning I did two races at the Black Hill Circuit race, finishing 1st in the Cat 5 race and 6th in the Cat 4/5 race. The course is a simple 1.4 mile loop crit, with one shortish climb per lap that also serves as the finish line about 3/4 of the way up the climb. The weather was not horrible, but certainly not ideal, around 40 degrees with a bit of wind. At least all the snow was gone and the course was clean of debris and pothole free.
After registration and a bit of warm-up doing a couple reverse laps of the course, I made my way to the starting area for the Cat 5 race at 9:30 and lined up near the back of the group, figuring there would be plenty of time to work my way up in the field. The race starts off with the one hill, which we took at a relatively relaxed pace. I was planning on trying to mostly "sit in" for this race, but grew a bit impatient with what seemed like a slowish pace and a twitchy pack. By the end of the first lap as we climbed the hill again, I had worked to the front and there seemed to be a small group of about six that had a little gap. I went to the front, took a longish pull, and tried to encourage the group to work together, thinking that a break of six had a good chance to stay away in the short 10 mile race. Sadly, that was not to be as the rest of the group wasn't working together and we were quickly re-caught toward the end of the next lap. On the very next time up the hill, me and one of the other guys from the six got a pretty good gap and went for it. He and I worked quite well together for the next two laps, although I had to wait for him a little on the climb and encourage him to keep at it. The next time up the hill (4th overall?) I told him I would just do a steady tempo and to try to hold on. By mid hill, he was struggling and one other rider (a young guy) had bridged across, so I ended up with a new teammate. The new young guy also managed to work well with me over the next couple of laps, and by the bell lap the crowd was telling us we had a gap that would stick. On the final downhill approaching the finishing climb I let my new friend lead me out and at 200 meters I gave it everything I had, came around him with a quick gap and held it to the finish. The rest of the field was probably about 15-20 second back at the end.
The first race was short, only 10 miles and about 25 minutes, but I had been in a two man break for the majority of the race and was definitely feeling it a bit. The second race wasn't going to start for about another hour and a half, so I had time to kill. Apart from trying to avoid the cold (I was getting really chilly), the one funny thing that happened was that the Cat 5 preliminary results came out and I wasn't on the result at all. I ended up having to go protest at the finish line, where they all agreed that I had clearly one and were mystified as to why I wasn't on the result and quickly rectified the situation.
The Cat 4/5 race was notably less eventful for me. I stayed with my plan to sit in the pack. In fact, I was so far back initially that I didn't even realize that there was a break (I gather one guy) or how many people were in the break. By the time I had worked my way toward the front, we were 30 second down and the group was working pretty poorly at bringing the break back. I tried a few times to do some pulls at the front, even ending up solo in no mans land for 1/4 lap or so before giving up on bridging and going back to hiding. By the final lap it was clear the break had it, so I was just trying to get in the front group of a dozen or so for the sprint. I didn't end up positions great, getting slightly boxed in on the sprint, but was able to pass a number of fading guys to end up in really close for 5th/6th, just getting clipped by a nose at the line. After the race, some guys were discussing that the winner was a super strong cyclocross guy just getting into road who went solo and had some teammates doing a good job "blocking" at the front of the pack as he got away.
Overall a fun day of racing and really cool to actually be part of a winning break. And also importantly getting a couple more starts in my journey out of being Cat 5 (races 4 and 5, so just 5 more to go).
Photos, Video?
While I had my camera on my bike, something seems to have gone wrong (battery not charged?), so I have no cool media of my own. On the plus side, technology abounds and plenty of other people had cameras and video. I can't use these photos without paying, but there are some really nice still shots at Wheeltastic Photo.
The guy who started the break in the Cat 5 race had a camera and forwarded me his video on youtube. Given that we were in a two man break for a couple laps, he naturally has a lot of footage of my butt. We start trying to go hard with the small group I mentioned at about 5 minute mark, start our two man break the next lap at about 8 minutes in and are together till about the 16 minute mark when you can see I join up with the guy who bridged.
I also found this link from the Cat 4/5 race showing the final lap and giving a pretty good shot of how I handled (or mis-handled) the sprint as the cameraman seemed to be mostly following me near the end.
