Monday, July 9, 2007

I'm old.... and more US Crit fun and controversy

2nd place sucks...



on the attack..... (notice the huge crowds)


Well, I did my first master's race this past weekend.. yeah yeah can't wait for the comments on this one... anyway, the race was pretty negative and I couldn't seem to go anywhere.. No one would really attack except a few guys but they would chase like no ones business.. I put in a few huge efforts and couldn't believe I was brought back. Anyway, about halfway through I made it into a pretty nice move of 6 and thought it was the break... We got brought back somehow and the field just sat up.. and on the opposite side of the rode, one of the riders I knew to watch rolled off and the field just stopped. I was stuck and couldn't do anything... Karl Bordine rolled off and I thought, no way they will let him roll the way they were chasing me.... but that didn't happen.. when I finally got out of the field that just sat up... Karl was already 30 secs up.. amazing.. I chased and attacked but could never get closer... It was amazing to me that none of the teams organized a chase... I kept saying stuff to them and they would say.. we are getting it organized.. haha.. oh well, Karl had an unreal ride and rode away to win and my only hope was for 2nd.. It stayed together and coming out of the final corner which was only 200 meters from the line I was 4th.. kinda messed that up.. but I kicked it into high gear and sprinted past everyone to win the field sprint and the silver medal. Kinda bummed as I missed a national championship.

I'm doing this backwards with this one but the night before nationals we suited up for the 5th stop of the US Crit series in West Chester, PA. This turned out to be a real ball buster... 100 or so starters on a 4 corner crit with a pretty nice size hill on it... I had a pretty rough day as I couldn't recover from anything I did and was closing gaps all night. Mark once again rode like a champ and Brandon stepped his game up and rode great. I couldn't do anything but survive and keep fighting hoping I could get back to the front.. Well that never happened and in the end didn't help out at all. 2 guys stayed away and Mark was 6th and I rode in for 27th.. rough day with only 40 finishers... I hate not being able to help or do anything... and this was by far the hardest crit I have done in a loooong time... After the race we got a sudden shock as the race officials decided to relegate Mark for sprinting dirty.. Apparently he moved from the left side of the road to the right and from the officials view it looked like he chopped the whole field but he had jumped them and was a couple bike lengths in front of them. They would not hear us and relegated him from 6th to 30th. To add to the BS, not a single rider complained and when I told the other riders in the top 10 that included top Pro's, they were all super surprised and didn't even know what the officials were talking about.. real dangerous huh??? I'm sure Mark has some good things to say about it as well so check his blog out.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on how you can relogate a rider when not a single rider complained about a dirty sprint??

Oh yeah, to add to my bad race on Sat night I ended up breaking my Masi frame at the seat stay.. not good.. so the power wasn't really all going to full use... and I rode it like that on Sunday as well... was gonna ride a teammates bike but decided to ride my broken one anyway... I seem to be breaking alot of things lately... 3 seats, a bike, a couple pedals a carbon wheel... maybe I need to cut back on all the ice cream....