I haven't done a race write-up here in a while, of course my results the last several months have been pretty disappointing. But it feels like I'm turning the corner.
I'd already raced M, Th & Sa, so I wanted to do something shorter, so back to those daily Crit City races. 8 laps, 10 miles, less than 45 minutes from warm-up to done. We had maybe 40 registered in the C pen. I was a fairly restrained start, which I was happy for as my legs were a bit sore and I was able to get into the lead group of a half-dozen or so and we slowly built a ~30 second lead over the similarly sized chase group. It never felt like the pace was being pushed hard and after a few laps the chase group started closing the gap and nobody seemed interested in pulling hard to stay away. I stayed tucked into the draft fully expecting we'd be caught.
Sure enough we were, I saw the chase group getting close, so I moved to the front and was able to latch on as they past. Things got scrambled and I didn't get a sense of whether or not anyone else from the original lead group was able to hang on.
No major fireworks on the penultimate lap. On the final lap there was a quick flurry of burritos through the little bumps (thankfully they were not a coordinated effort), but I don't think anyone got dropped. I used my truck to get a bit more rest after coming down the cobbles. The winning move came from fairly far out, two riders went early, myself and ~4 others let it go. I surfed wheels a bit, and was ultimately unable to get around the rider that pulled me up to the two leaders. I ended up 4th on the road, 3rd on zp about a half second from the win.
I was particularly happy with the early realization that we were going to get caught in the lead group and thus there wasn't any point in pulling and to be up in the front as the chase group came around. I was disappointed that I didn't go early with the two riders at the end -- if it'd been a lone rider I think it would have been OK and we'd have caught 'em.
