July has come and the City Streets Criterium Series has begun, so being
young and poor, I volunteered. This worked out great, not only did volunteering
allow me race for free but I met a lot of cool folks and had a blast setting up
the course. For the last few years the Fort Collins city streets department has
been allowing the guys from Pro Velo and Yougroupride.com to build a criterium circuit
on their property, pretty cool industrial vibe going on...I liked it. The track
was short only about half a mile long but consists of several turns ending with
a 180 that lead to the start/finish.
After setting up the
course I marshaled one of the turns for the kids races and then headed off to
get warmed up for my race....wait, wait, wait. Let me back it up a bit. A few
weeks ago I sold my Corsa and bought a Cannondale Caad9 and built it up with
some 9 speed Dura Ace and let me say, I'm a big fan. Since building it up I
have yet to race it and I was super stoked to finally try it out!
I got a few good laps
in on the track before the start of my race and worked out what lines I wanted
to take through the turns and then rolled up to take a place on the line. Apart from a new bike this was also the first
race I’ve been in in Colorado where I had some friends to the field, at the
line I had my friends Malcolm, Mikheil and Paul in the field, I ate a peanut
butter cup and a roctane and then we were off.
Right
off the start Paul, Mikheil, I and one other rider were up front and after
about three laps we had made a small gap and stayed off the front for about two
more laps. After falling back into the main field I sat in towards the rear of
the group battling the yo-yo effect and soon I was dropped off the back. Now in
my right place dangling off the end of the main field I got into a small group
with only two other riders, we worked together taking pulls and kept the tempo
high but we never regained contact with the rest of the peloton. With about ten
minutes remaining in the race the I was finally lapped, first by the two riders
who had made an attack and were now off the front and shortly after by the main
field.
As the countdown of 5
laps to go started, they began pulling the lapped riders off the course, this
allowed me to catch up with Malcolm, who had been dropped pretty early on in
the race as well as watch the two leaders duke it out for the final two laps.
So, in the end I finished a lap behind but I feel that I was riding well;
perhaps I just should not have tried to get in a break away from the very start.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun and plan on doing the rest of the series so; keep
post this month for more race reports from the City Streets Criterium series in
Fort Collins.
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