Yesterday I was mildly surprised. Not only about that I won the race, but a multitude of other things. I was surprised how much it hurt to take it up 10 notches from training to racing. It surprised me how strong other guys already are mid February. It surprised me that I forgot how fun it is to corner at 30 mph on sewups.

The race was a one hour criterium, but better, or worse than that, it was a points race. So there were 3 points sprints, so one about every 15 minutes, plus the end. There were about 40 + guys at the line, which seemed pretty great considering. Seems like criteriums have been getting a bad rap recently. Maybe it is a Pro deal, Pros not liking criteriums much, I’m not sure, but for some reason, the criterium is looked down upon by the average Joe bike racer.

I think criteriums are great. I think that it is the best public viewing of bike racing and probably the only segment of the sport that might eventually become a successful American spectator sport. Plus, it is a great way to get in a ton of speed work and intensity without going out and banging your head against the wall alone.

The race started out crazy fast. The course was pretty much a rectangle, with one corner a sweeper. Right from the gun, it was on. I was way over my limit, or what I considered my limit, from the get-go. Somewhere during the 2nd or 3rd lap I was thinking that maybe I wasn’t going to be able to finish. I didn’t want to miss the front group, so was covering just about anything that moved. I’m not close to fit enough for that. So I followed wheels for a couple laps and then, probably about 5 laps in, I felt the field was pretty done, so I put in a half-assed attack. Nearly immediately, Joe Fox, Cycle City, blew by me and proceeded to take a full lap at, what I considered, warp speed. When I looked back after 3/4 a lap, there were just two other guys, Garrick Valverde, Velotek, and Michael Smith, Kaos.

That was pretty much the right combination of riders for a successful break. We soon got into a fairly even rotation. If anything, I was pulling the shortest, but I had so many question marks floating around, I wasn’t willing to make the stupid error of getting gassed and spit out early.

Pretty soon they rang the bell for the first sprint. It was going to be straight into a pretty strong head/crosswind. We all kept in rotation and Michael led it out. I didn’t have any problem coming around him, which mildly surprised me. It gave me some confidence, but was still early.

So, we kept the rotation going pretty much until the end of the race. I won all three sprints, one by just a bike throw over Garrick. Eventually, towards the end of the race we had lapped nearly everyone. On the last lap, there was only one group left to lap, a big group with my TradeWind Energy team mates, Brian Jensen and Bill Stolte, and most the other historically better riders. We rode into them with just 2 corners to go.

This is when I got a little mixed up. I was trying to follow Michael Smith, who had a pretty strong team mate leading him out, but somehow we got juggled pretty far back when Joe Fox attacked with 1/2 a lap to go. Then Garrick somehow came by us and had a huge gap with 200 meters. I was just following Michael, drafting him on the left. Somehow, maybe a wind gust, I ended up on the far left of the road, which was a pretty beat up, cracked surface. I hit a parallel crack to my tires and had to do a big stutter coast to keep my balance. That was all she wrote. By the time I got going, I couldn’t get by Michael. Garrick was a few lengths ahead. But, since I’d won all the intermediary sprints, I still had enough points to win.

I wasn’t too bad at the end. My left leg was not up to speed, which is becoming normal. But I seemed to have okay form compared to everyone else, which was nice.

We’d ridden over the 30 miles from Topeka and got some extra clothing on and headed back pretty much right after the race. We weren’t going to have much extra daylight. But the problem was the temperature dropped super fast. Like 20 degrees in an hour. I was once again frozen. Mainly my fingers and feet. I think they got way too cold on Wednesday and it is going to take awhile before they quit punishing me.

Right now I’m driving to Columbia Missouri for a 60 mile road race. I couldn’t talk anyone else into going, so it’s just Trudi, Bromont and me. I didn’t get enough sleep, which is usual on race weekends, but unsual now, since I haven’t been racing for so long. I think the last criterium I did was the first week of July, the Nationals Criterium Champhionships. That is weird.

Okay, that is all for now. My worry today is mainly about dressing correctly. It is only supposed to be in the mid 30’s, so I don’t want to miss it.

I probably jumped 20 times during the hour. 19 more times than I had previously this year training.

Early in the race with Peter Boyd and Bill Stolte.

Riding back to Topeka after the race with Bill, Ian and Jack. Photo by Kris, who was there too.

Results. Click to enlarge.

Yesterday I jumped into the Insight, with Trudi and Bromont, and headed the 200+ miles over to Columbia Missouri to race a road race, Froze Toes. And it lived up to its name. It wasn’t raining or anything, but when I was driving over there, it was sort of snowing. And it was pretty cold, not freezing, but pretty, 30’s.

I woke up a little tweaked from the day before. I’m not sure why, but after riding in the rain Wednesday for an hour and a half, my hands have been freezing. Riding back from the criterium on Saturday, I got pretty cold. I’m not sure why I’ve been missing the right clothing selection, but it does drain you a lot more than you’d think.

Anyway, I don’t really mind racing when it is cold. I just don’t like getting ready for races when it is cold out. Especially when I don’t have my van, or a car to stay warm in before the race.

I wasn’t too bad at the start, even though I didn’t ride a pedal stroke for warm-up before the start. There were somewhere around 40 riders there. The course is a 30 mile loop, mainly heading North and South. The wind was pretty strong from the North, so it was going to mainly be a headwind, tailwind deal. There was just enough sidewind, in retrospect.

I won’t go over all the minute details of the race, but here is pretty much how it went from my perspective. It turned into a stupid attack/coast thing right from the gun. I kept trying to roll through and get the group moving along at a good pace, but they weren’t having any of that. A couple groups of two rode away and the remainder of the field was just doing all these silly jumps, when wasn’t all that comfortable.

This is the 2nd day in a row where the race started out chaotic. I don’t understand why a bunch of Cat 1/2 riders would attack like crazy at the start of a race, when, obviously by the results, they didn’t have the fitness yet to do it. When my form is questionable, I always try to error on the side of caution, draft as much as possible, do small system checks to see where I’m at.

On the first sidewind section, somehow I got to the front and ended up riding off the front with a kid from Mesa Cycles, Grant Erhard. Grant took a huge pull in the first sidewind section, I came through pretty good and we were gone. We caught up with the 4 guys that were up the road and pretty soon there were 5 of us rotating pretty well.

By now we were riding with a strong tailwind, so we were hauling ass. One of our group, I think Robert Smallman, flatted on the potholed laced road. So then, there were 4 of us. Along with Grant and I, it was Isaiah Newkirk and Dustin Morici. Isaiah, Grant and I were all pulling pretty good. Dustin was hurting, but kept trying to do his share. That is how it went for the next 40ish miles. Just a few miles from the finish, Dustin finally came off on the final tailwind stretch. I told him after that he should have just told us he was going to sit on. We would have slowed a little to let him get closer to the finish.

So there were 3. Seemed like both Grant and Isaiah were getting a little tired. I was trying to put in a hard effort, but didn’t want to kill myself to the extend I wasn’t going to be able to contest the race. A couple miles out from the finish, there is really the only hill on the course. I figured I’d see how wasted my guys were and put in a jab over the top of the hill I got maybe a hundred meters ahead, but sort of stalled there. I really wasn’t putting a 100% effort in, but was hoping that it was going to work. It didn’t. I could see the finish, I was maybe a mile out. There was a descent and then 1K uphill to the finish. I coasted the descent, worried that only Grant was chasing me and then Isaiah was going to jump. I try to make it a point at all times during a bike race that I have at least one good jump in me, at all times. I wouldn’t have if I kept going full throttle.

So, they roll up and we slow to nearly a track stand. We were all kind of hurt. We started sprinting maybe 300 meters out. Isaiah instantly got popped. I jumped Grant, hoping to get him to sprint early. He did, but it wasn’t too early for him. I didn’t have the timing down and when the road flattened out, he pulled a bike length out of me close to the line. I realized I was going to run out of real estate, I lost.

I wasn’t too depressed about finishing 2nd. Overall, the day was nearly perfect. I wanted to go and ride really hard, which at the start of the race, seemed like it was going to be frustrating impossible. It was great getting into a small group that wanted to work together. It was super fun riding with those guys. Plus, it was the first time I’ve ever won a frozen pizza in a race. I won a frozen turkey in Tijuana Mexico once, but never a pizza.

I ended the week with nearly 500 miles, which was a ton considering how windy it has been and how much of that I rode alone. Plus I got in two local races, which like I posted a couple days ago, can end up being much harder than bigger events. I “lucked” into breaks both days, so got exceptional training in both weekend days. I feel pretty good this morning, so I think I’m on the right track so far this season, but, you never know.

The “podium”-me, Grant and Isaish. I think I’m older than if you add the ages of both of the other guys together. Shit.

Grant was pretty stoked on the line.

Four of the original 5, talking over the race after. I love hearing the other guy’s views of the race.

Results-Click to enlarge.

The is Ethan Froese. I’ve know him and his brother, Aaro, promoter of Froze Toes, forever. He gave me this print by his father before the race. It was very thoughful. After the race, I got a chance to catch up a little with Ethan, getting a bite to eat with him and his son Noland.