Steve Tilford

This might be the most boring “race report” I’ve ever done. There isn’t much to write about yesterday’s race. The course is a 4 corner, wide open criterium. It was going around and around fairly quickly, but it was never hard. Our average speed was always hovering around 30 mph, which seems fast, but it really wasn’t hard.

On the last lap, on the final corner, I thought I was in pretty okay position, but probably should have been a little more inside. A couple guys ahead of me got tangled up and fell. I had to grab a bunch of brake and then go super wide around the corner. I came out of the corner about 50 guys back, but more importantly, 100 meters from the front of the field. I sprinted a couple times, but realized I needed to not be in the wind the whole lap.

I made a sort of sketchy move, which I was called out on, with two corners to go. I dove the inside of the corner, but there was tons of room, but I guess I scared some guy. He came up to me after the race and was mad. He said we were going for 50th place and why take risks. I told him I didn’t take any risk. He said he had to pull his brakes. I asked him why that mattered if we were going for 50th place? He didn’t really have an answer for that, but he was still pissed. In reality, he was closer to right than me, but if that was the worse incident he had in this race, then he should be happy.

I passed a few more guys and was hoping they might regroup a little, but no luck. It stayed in line going 35+, so I ended up 33th place. I did have a KOM on the 3rd side of the course, averaging 39.9 mph. I was going pretty hard, but it is a little downhill too. I finished 5 seconds back, which is about how far back I was at the first corner after avoiding the crash, so it goes to show you how important positioning is at the finishes of these races. Especially when you don’t have a ton of race speed to make up for problems, which inevitably, always occur.

Today is a much harder race. It is called the Hill area of St. Louis and is the Italian section. I’ve had good races here historically. I don’t think I ever have won this race, but know I’ve finished 2nd a couple times, then lots in the top 10.

I have set low goals today, just wanting to get a full race in. I need race miles for sure, I can tell. I’m not as bad as I suspected, but am not that great. I ended up with over 80 miles yesterday, counting a hour ride in the morning, then riding to and from the race, plus the 36 miles of racing. I’m a little tired.

I didn’t catch up on sleep. We had to get up early because Trudi had an early flight. She is heading up to Canada for the two World Tour races there next week. So I’m alone on Tucker duty. It is a little time consuming staying at a hotel and all, but we have a routine, so it will be fine.

It is supposed to be in the middle 80’s today, then over 90 tomorrow. The races get progressively harder as the temperatures are getting higher. That’s not good.

The Tour of Spain has been pretty great the last few days. I have it playing right now. I’m not sure how Quintana got away from Chris Froome, but it is making for interesting tactics.

There was a lot of drafting to be had yesterday.

I saw this house by the Mississippi River yesterday out riding. It is build on a boat with poles beside it so it can just raise up when the river floods.

This is the church on the Layfayette Park course that has been turned into condos. I’d like to see the inside of the upper units. The ceilings have to be 50 feet high.

The St. Louis arch.

Trudi at the St. Louis airport this morning.

I hate being on the 2nd page of races like this.

Tucker must have wanted some water after the race yesterday.

I guess my bad luck continued yesterday at the Giro Della Montagna criterium. Like the day before, there isn’t that much to write about. It was just a normal criterium.

The race is at the Italian section of St. Louis. We used to all go to a Bocce Ball place and have a meal and play Bocce after the race. But I guess the race has gotten way too big for that anymore. Shame.

The race is pretty much up a hill on the back stretch and back down to the finish. Not a big hill by any means, but enough to get you tired after doing it for 75 minutes. The front of the race’s pace makes riding further back risky. The 1st three corners can get jammed up, thus you have to scrub a lot of speed, which you have to make up somewhere else on the course. But yesterday’s race didn’t really get out of control.

The end of the race was interesting. There were a few guys off the front, which one must have been a UHC rider. I say that because UHC lined up on the inside for the leadout the last 3 laps, but were just hovering there, trying to protect their position at the front without chasing. It made it hard to move up since we were riding curb to curb.

I got into just okay position with a couple laps to go. I was swarmed a couple times and had to battle back up. I wasn’t in great position, but great position in this race would require too much energy to hold.

I was maybe 20 guys back with one to go, on the outside, but the inside line was going faster. I stuck to where I was at and into the first corner, it looked like it opened up for John Purvis, a friend from Arkansas. He had just come here yesterday for the last two races. He borrowed some tools from me before the start.

John was going around the outside of the first turn and I followed him. He looked like he was going to be fine, but I think maybe the guy to his inside did a small swerve and he mimicked it, but whatever happened he was headed for the curb at the wrong angle. I saw it coming but couldn’t do anything about it. He slid out and hit the barrier and curb. I grabbed a lot of brake, tried to cut the corner short, but his bike flipped back into the course and I flipped over the bars.

I was more disappointed than pissed. It was super bad luck. I had not used much energy the previous few laps and think I had one good lap in me. But, no replays, so I’ll never know. The sprint isn’t good for me, going downhill, so I would have just tried to be as far up as possible going into the last corner, then just try to maintain.

John came over to the van and asked me if I was alright, which was nice. He told me that he didn’t really know what happened. He said that was the first time he has ever crashed on the road. He races cross, so he must have fallen in cross races. I told him it was my 2nd crash in 3 days, so don’t worry about it. It is just part of racing. It’s a bad part of racing, but part none the less. He said his back was sore, which I sympathized with. My back is tweaked too.

So three out of 4 races done. At least I’m getting in pretty much a full race each day, if nothing else. Today’s race is at Benton Park and is pretty difficult. It is more like a hard circuit race and not a criterium. I was thinking about skipping it, since I’m pretty beat up, but that isn’t how I’d normally operate, so I’m going, even though my heart isn’t completely into it.

Yesterday I took Tucker to the bike path that runs North out of St. Louis, along the Mississippi. It was already pretty warm, so I didn’t want to run him too long. We went maybe 3 or 4 miles. After the run, I went to a easy access point and he swam some in the river. He wasn’t used to a current, so was a little panicked. I ended up swallowing a bunch of water, which he puked up pretty quickly, but he had a good time. He really doesn’t like being too hot. Then late last night, we went over to Forest Park, the biggest park in Central St. Louis for another romp. He seems to be having a pretty good time here, even if I’m not.