Concord Crit Cat 3 Bar Cam & Race Report
This is my new favorite crit, ever. The climb makes it reasonably hard in the cat 3 race, and it was long enough (1:15) that people were getting pretty tired by the end. I much prefer a crit with a little suffering than the old "40 minutes, eveyone's fresh and thinks they can win the sprint" that is so often the case. I know I was certainly starting to regret my fueling choices with about five laps to go, but I held off the bonk just barely long enough to mix it up on the last lap.
The team was myself, Preston and Ford and the plan was "leadout Ford if the break doesn't stick." Unfortunately Preston went rogue/plaid the last time up the hill trying to neutralize an attack and Ford and I didn't adjust appropriately, which put us on the front with everyone looking at each other with about 60 seconds of racing left ... unfortunately a bit too far out for me to take over on the leadout, especially after climbing the hill at Preston-speed.
So we got swarmed by GLV, which was well-timed, and Steven tried to human-pylon me, but I got through it, and fired up the adrenaline right into the enduro section and started fighting Kevin Goguen for 3rd wheel while cornering at 30mph. Kevin was all like "get off me, old man" and took 3rd wheel back, which I was sorta okay with since I didn't want him separating me from Ford anyway.
Unfortunately since we aren't actually crit experts (but I play one on a listserve!) I didn't think to confirm that Ford was on my wheel (I HAD ADRENALINE, EVERYTHING MUST BE WORKING EXACTLY AS I WANT IT TO!) and he didn't think to tell me that someone had slotted in between us. So I came into the last turn in 4th wheel thinking "I have failed as a leadout man, but if I open up this sprint super early I can still give Ford a nice launchpad." Unfortunately Ford was not on my wheel so I left Kevin Goguen's wheel to lead out a bunch of empty airspace instead.
So I was basically a ball of jello with 50m to go, which sucked because I was still in 5th place at that time, and if I had just managed to keep pedaling I would have held 5th. But my brain was all "this hurts terribly and Ford hasn't passed you, so you suck at leadouts too" and that made it hard to keep pedaling. So a dude rolled past me and I got 6th. And 5th place was the last paying spot. Uh, sorry, guys.
Luckily the video is really pretty fun. Check it out!
Concord Crit Cat 3 Bar Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo.
The team was myself, Preston and Ford and the plan was "leadout Ford if the break doesn't stick." Unfortunately Preston went rogue/plaid the last time up the hill trying to neutralize an attack and Ford and I didn't adjust appropriately, which put us on the front with everyone looking at each other with about 60 seconds of racing left ... unfortunately a bit too far out for me to take over on the leadout, especially after climbing the hill at Preston-speed.
So we got swarmed by GLV, which was well-timed, and Steven tried to human-pylon me, but I got through it, and fired up the adrenaline right into the enduro section and started fighting Kevin Goguen for 3rd wheel while cornering at 30mph. Kevin was all like "get off me, old man" and took 3rd wheel back, which I was sorta okay with since I didn't want him separating me from Ford anyway.
Unfortunately since we aren't actually crit experts (but I play one on a listserve!) I didn't think to confirm that Ford was on my wheel (I HAD ADRENALINE, EVERYTHING MUST BE WORKING EXACTLY AS I WANT IT TO!) and he didn't think to tell me that someone had slotted in between us. So I came into the last turn in 4th wheel thinking "I have failed as a leadout man, but if I open up this sprint super early I can still give Ford a nice launchpad." Unfortunately Ford was not on my wheel so I left Kevin Goguen's wheel to lead out a bunch of empty airspace instead.
So I was basically a ball of jello with 50m to go, which sucked because I was still in 5th place at that time, and if I had just managed to keep pedaling I would have held 5th. But my brain was all "this hurts terribly and Ford hasn't passed you, so you suck at leadouts too" and that made it hard to keep pedaling. So a dude rolled past me and I got 6th. And 5th place was the last paying spot. Uh, sorry, guys.
Luckily the video is really pretty fun. Check it out!
Concord Crit Cat 3 Bar Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo.
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