Cat 4/5
About 60 of us lined up at the start of the 4/5 race. Pretty good showing considering southern CA just started their racing season only a week ago. A 40 minute Crit with a totally flat course, .6 mile loop. It was shorter and flatter then Wells Ave, if that is possible. Our fist race went off at 8:50AM. The field was your typical 4/5 crowd but there were three teams that showed up in force. Hazard Cycle Sport, FastTrack, and Amgen (more on these guys later). The best part of racing out here is that it was 55 degrees for our race and we raced under palm trees. The entire north east is just not cycling friendly this time of year. Steve has been riding hard all winter back and fourth to USBC (University Santa Barbara California) for his new job. Basically he is getting 40+ miles in every day plus what ever he can do on the weekends. With little effort Steve raced well and stayed near the front for the entire race (it pays to train had during the winter and has a great back yard called Solvang, CA to do it in). I felt good fitness wise but my technical skills are a bit rusty and will need some work, but that will come with more racing. The field was a little twitchy. I think that ½ of them were 5’s and most of them had never raced before. I took my turn up at the front of the race (making sure to get the Quad colors noticed!) for a lap. The group pretty much stayed together. We were all content to work hard then sit in for a bit but guys kept trying to get off the front for a break but it was always reeled in. The Amgen guys were really working well as a team. They must have had about 7 guys in the race. Every break away had an Amgen guy in it and the rest of the team would come up and block. This worked REALLY well. I has never been in a race where blocking was so successful. There was a small group with an Amgen guy off the front and it was getting towards the end of the race. The field finally woke up and chased the break away down. With about 6 to go we were all one big group again. The only big excitement was with three to go two guys came up on my left side. Which is pretty interesting considering the space between me and the cones just wide enough for myself, forget about sticking another two riders in there. One of the guys was from FastTrack and riding pretty good, he must have been a 4. The other guy who was coming up on the far left side did not know what he was doing. In about 1 second they were pushing elbows trying to grab road position before the next turn. The other guy started to wig out and lost control, he must of felt odd with the shoulder / elbow bumping. He lost control, hit an orange cone and took the FastTrack guy down. This would have been great to watch from a distance but I was in the middle of it. My only ‘exit’ was over. I bunny hopped as much as I could but I did wind up riding over the FastTrack’s guys bike (pretty sure I bent his wheel). I was able to keep it upright but lost my position in the front with only 3 to go. Steve was a little bit further up in the field so he missed all of the crash. I dropped back a few too many places but was able pack finish with everyone. In all a good first race! Congrats to Steve as he got 10. His second top ten in two weeks, nice job! After the race we fueled up and relaxed. Our next race Masters 30+ was in 2.5 hours…
Masters 30+
Ok this was only my 2nd master’s race ever and wow what a difference. These guys are smooth and fast. The biggest difference from the last race was how well these guys cornered at speed. The lines we took as a group into each of the corners was a lot wider. Because we took the corners much wider then the 4/5 race the speed was faster. Average speed for the master’s race was 4 mph faster. This race was longer at 60 minutes and once again we had 60 or so racers. Our main goal for this race was to have another workout and work on our racing skills; I was not in it for the ‘win’. Right from the start guys were jumping off the front. Out of our 60 minutes I think only 5 of them did not have a group off the front. For this race Steve was again up front looking great. I was in the main group riding in the pack practicing my cornering techniques as they needed the practice. I actually felt stronger during this race then the first race. I think it was 1st race of the season jitters that got me going. Once out of my system I (and Steve) was able to have a more fluid race then in the 4/5. Once again the breaks were flying off the front but were chased down, besides one. About 10 guys got off the front and just hovering at 20’ish seconds in front of us. We just could not get them. This group was off the front when the final 7 laps were being counted down. As soon as the lap cards came out and the officials started counting down the laps the main field started MOVING. We jumped an easy 4-5 mph faster so our speed was averaging about 28MPH at this point. We were catching the break away. Each lap the announcer would give up the splits 20, 16, 12 seconds! Heck we got them to 20 feet! But as soon as we got close the main field started to implode. The speed was just getting too fast for people to hold onto including me. With a couple of laps to go a break (which at this point could still have been the break of 10 guys) went off again for the win. They turned up the speed and nobody could follow. Steve held on for a pack finish but with a couple to go I got tossed off the back to finish doing an individual TT. After the race we were all happy considering that we had just done a double race. One interesting note about this race. There was a former Tour de France participant in it! Yeah this guy raced the tour. So we felt pretty good about this race considering that we were racing with a former TdF participant!
In all some good racing. Can’t wait to start up our season soon!
Posted by katzj 
