CCCC Sandown Crit - C Grade
Well after a hot day and the temperature hitting 42 degrees and another morning 60km hilly ride i decided to front up to my second crit race ever. With a reduced field of maybe 20 riders, probably due to the hot temperatures, i was feeling pretty good on the start line. The bunch rolled along at a pretty steady pace with a few false attacks for the first 10minutes of the 50 minute race, until a young kid decided to have a crack at a break about 20 minutes in and put in a few hundred meters on the field and he made it stick. The field feeling the heat, wasn't responding particularly well and he managed to stay out front for the whole race.
It was at about this point i realized that i had gone through most of my water and i was dehydrated from my ride earlier in the day and a sufferfest session the night before, i was thinking im not sure im going to make the 50min mark. This is when the Chaos started, A-Grade came around on a tight bend, C grade moved left, slowed to let them pass, suddenly I noticed to C-graders sitting on the tails of A-grade and they were gone within a matter of a few hundred meters, with half the bunch not knowing they had gone and the other half not willing to chase in the heat.
Another lap in and a group of three broke away from the main field, i decided i better chase this down and did a TT effort to bring them back, i could see shadows behind me and thought i had dragged the main field along with me, but when i turned around to my amazement only 1 other guy had managed to hold my wheel. I finally grabbed a wheel and tried to sit there for a few minutes catching my breath when another rider managed to catch us, so there were 6 of us away the main field had been decimated and was spread over 3km of track.
We were now in our own little race for 4th, and I was out of water
I looked around at the other 5 riders, a few were in the hurt box and not doing a turn, with three of us working and three sucking wheels. I was getting left on the front into the headwind 3 laps in a row, despite my pleading for someone to come around and take a turn i was starting to feel pretty lonely. So i decided its time to treat this as a road race, so i stuck it into the gutter so to speak, got aero and rode next to the barrier of the road for protection, no one behind me was getting any benefit from my draft if they weren't going to help out. We were getting split into the headwind and coming back together for the tailwind, it was chaos, but i was doing some damage to the wheel suckers in the finale laps. Finally i decided enough was enough, cat and mouse is fun but not for me and besides i cant sprint! So on the final lap, into the headwind i jumped and got a gap of 50m or so TT'ing the last 2km with only 2 of the boys able to stay close, final bend came around and one guy managed to catch me and out sprint me for fourth.
Was a great Race and I probably rode it better than last week despite finishing 5th, Im treating the Crit racing and road racing practice, as i cant sprint im probably always going to go on the attack, and twice now i feel like im one of the strongest in bunch. Maybe next week ill go with the first attack and see if i cant make it stick.
