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Cat's Hill Criterium Report
Will Skinner
5/5/07
Field: 24 15/16s, 20+ 17/18s
Place: 14th in 15/16, 27th overall
Teammates: Adam, Alex, Nick A., Peter, Chris, Andy, Ye, Eric, Nick J.
I got to the race two hours early, at 10:00. We drove around for 20 minutes or so looking for a parking place, and then ran into Adam and his mom. Eventually I got my trainer set up on the sidewalk next to Jason's car, which was where almost everyone else was. I got about 40 minutes of warmup, then went to the line.
Right at the start, I had trouble clipping in and knew this was going to be a bad race for me. I lost about 10-15 places before I could clip in and accelerate. The first time up the hill I didn't know what to expect, so I shifted down into my small chainring and the middle of my cassette. This gearing turned out to be a little too high, and I had to really mash to get up the last few meters. Still, I was able to gain some ground, and finished the hill near what I thought was the middle of the field. The pace before the descent was not too fast, and I hung with the group until the hill. My second time on the hill I shifted into a lower gear and started to pass some people on the way up. Then, near the middle, my gears slid two or three cogs in the back. I found myself pushing a huge gear as people passed me. I was barley able to make it over the top without having to get off and walk. After this my race was basically over. The peloton had passed me by. I got on the wheel of another straggler and rode with him for a few laps before passing him on the descent. On the last lap I was riding with one other rider. I knew if could stick with him on the hill, I could pass him on the descent and at least win our little two-man race. I matched him on the hill and flats, and started the descent on his wheel. Right before the turn, I passed him and pedaled through the turn. I put my head down and was able to hold my gap without standing up.
Despite my poor finish and technical issues, I enjoyed this race. I'm looking forward to riding in it again next year.
Merco Criterium
3/3/07
Place: 21(in 15-16s)
Field: 50+
Category: junior 15-18
Teammates: Adam, Alex, Chris, Peter, Alicia, Nick, Miguel, Andy, Nick, Ye
I stayed at a hotel in Merced overnight. In the morning I woke up at 5:30, had breakfast and went over to the race, which was just a few minutes away in downtown Merced. I arrived at the course around 6:15, got my bike, and went over to where everyone was setting up. I had forgotten to ask Jason to bring an extra trainer for me to warm up on, so I ended up warming up by riding about 10 laps around the course.
Around 7:20 when rollouts began, I happened to be right there and was one of the first to the start line. I was at the very front, between J.P. and Peter. By that time the weather was starting to warm up, so I didn't have problems with my legs getting cold as happened at Snelling.
The race started 5 minutes late, and it was fast from the very beginning. in the first few laps there was a crash, between turns 4 and 5. I think it involved about 5 riders, but there might have been more. I avoided the crash and kept going.
Because we were racing with the 17-18s, my goal for this race was just to stick with the pack for as long as I could. I was able to keep up with them for somewhere around 4-6 laps, but my heart rate was consistently way too high (190+), and I dropped off the back. I rode solo for a few laps until I caught up to a group of some other dropped riders, two from DBC and one from AMD. We worked together for a few laps, with the AMD guy and I doing most of the work. Somewhere in here we had gotten lapped by the peloton. With 7 or 8 laps to go we caught another group of dropped riders which included Alicia and Alex. We passed them, with some of them jumping on our wheels. With 4 laps to go, the officials said something to us that I didn't quite catch. I learned later that they had told us this was our last lap, and we should sprint to the finish and then get off the course. I ended up sprinting for about 50 feet against one guy from DBC and finishing ahead of him.
I learned from this race that the start is very important. Although I started at the front of the line, when the riders started forming into a pack I didn't ride aggresively enough and ended up in the back half of the peloton. This made every small decrease in the speed of the riders at the front seem much bigger, and made it more difficult to stay on the wheel of the rider in front of me. Even though I got dropped, I felt a lot better this week than I did last week at Snelling, and I was glad that I finished the race.
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