Chapel Criterium, July 10, 2008

From CRCycling

B Race

By Kevin

I drove down just south of Akron for some crit racing fun. The B race was scheduled for 30 minutes+5 laps. There were easily more than 30 riders in the B field. A small contingent from Westlake was part of the race. Gwen, Chris, Jon, and Jason were some of the familiar faces. Most of the rest of the field was wearing the yellow and black of Stark Velo or the red and black of Orrville.

I was not too mentally prepared for the race, and started to drift toward the back of the field after a few laps. Bad move. Once I got into the slower traffic, I was on the brakes going into every corner and sprinting out of the other side. After 20 minutes I seriously overheated and slid off the back. Chris Riccardi was warming up by racing the "B" field and paced me back toward the main field. I hung onto his wheel and we slowly got closer to the field. A rider crashed on one of the trickier turns of the course and that broke my concentration. We were within spitting distance of the field, but I was cooked mentally.

Weirdly, even though I was dropped, my average speed was about the same as the main field, which was only about 23 mph.

I whacked my pedals through the turns several times, but kept the shiny side up.

This is a fun course. I'll be back next week and hopefully do better now that I know the course and know to stay closer to the front!