Sunday, April 19, 2015

UM downtown crit

Last weekend the University hosted a collegiate criterium downtown, and I figured I should get into the open race. The UM team had managed to get a bunch of downtown streets closed for most of the day and created a 1 mile circuit that went around the xxxxes at the end of Higgins, up a few blocks to Pine, down Higgins in front of Charlie's and Wardens, down Spruce, and back around. Since the college races started at 8am, and the open mens wasn't until two, I decided to get all my stuff together and go down there at about 10 to watch. This is the Women's A group:


I was out of cereal at home so I went into the break to get a pastry and some coffee. That place really needs to re-work the payment and ordering system because it took way too long to just pay for a cup of coffee I poured myself. Anyhow, I was down there and noticed the course wasn't entirely blocked off from pedestrians so I went and stood on a corner to prevent people from wandering into the path of a bike race. Still had some close calls with the men's college A group. I had originally been nervous about the racing and cornering part of doing a crit (I've never raced one before), but after seeing there were only a few people signed up my concern turned towards the course control aspect. People coming out of Charlie's and the Ox (on Sunday morning...) tended not to be very aware of their surroundings and kept just walking into and across the street without looking. Luckily, no one crashed into anyone all day.



After men's A, the college kids were done racing and it was time for women's open. Unfortunately only Tamara plus two juniors showed up, so Tam did a few laps with them and it was cut short. I ate half a sandwich then went to my car to change and warm up, and realized I'd left my shoes at home. No worries, had a good 40min before the 2:15 start time. I get back just before two and some guys are like "hey, you'd better get over there, race is starting early." I ride around the corner to the start where everyone is lined up and we go immediately. So much for warming up and getting some laps around the course. Here's a picture John Seiber took during one of the first laps:




We had a group of 8, including Tamara. Right off the start things were going pretty briskly and it only took about two laps for Brian and Josh Tack to start cranking out of the hairpin which split up the group. I went with and suddenly we were in a 3 person break. Orion bridged up to us on his own because he's Orion and then we had four.




above photos by Danny Hathaway

Every time we took the sharp turn around the Xs I lost a little ground. Maybe some warm up laps would have got me carrying more speed through them, but as it was, I wasn't doing it as fast as Josh, Brian, and Orion. Coming out of them you went two block straight into the wind, so not being right on a wheel meant I was working to close a gap. I think they even waited up for me a few times, but by about lap 10 I couldn't catch up anymore and was by myself. Riding alone in races (and getting dropped by Josh Tack) seems to be a theme for me this year.



A couple laps later I noticed those guys had lapped the rest of the field and were all riding in a group for a lap or two. Spectators probably thought I was in dead last by myself. Then Brian low-sided leading the group through the Xs (of which there is a good picture on instagram). I think things broke back up around then with Orion and Josh riding off on their own. I went by Brian picking himself up and decided to slow down. He caught up and then we managed to not start riding together so I was back in 4th again. Then I caught Tam and Tim and they hung on for awhile. Tim fell off but Tamara hung on to the end. I did have to pick it up through the last few corners to make sure there wasn't a sprint.


In conclusion, it was fun, but could have used a few more racers. Afterward some people commented in email that they were unaware that it had happened (despite the attached flyer in earlier messages). So a little more promotion might have gone a long way. Also better barriers and more course marshalls would have reduced the pedestrian issues, I'm thinking you would need the full on metal gate barriers through a few sections of course. And maybe have an ambulance and some emts handy. I didn't notice any...

As for me, my fitness was pretty good but the racing skills didn't cut it. I was slow through the important corner and not great at sticking on wheels, so it was only a matter of time before I got dropped. It would have happened anyway, as Josh and Orion are both very fast cat 1 racers, but I could have stuck with them longer by riding a little better.


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