T-Bones Rare

Well, it was a busy long weekend for me as I competed in two criteriums, the Canada Data Crit and the Leva Crit on July 2. The Canada Day Crit was interesting for me, I decided to compete in the Masters A/B category thinking it would be a slightly easier ride. What can i say about the race? i got taken to school, I was totally out classed, or it was a great learning experrience. I’ll go with learning experience. I was suprised at the start line to see a number plates from Cat 1/2/3/4 in the line up, I really shouldn’t have been. At the starting gun I fumbled getting my foot cleated in and I was playing catch up. Despite lots of encouragement from friends who came out to cheer me on I retired after 17 minutes feeling totally spent. Here’s a lookt at the course.

The course runs counter clockwise with the ascent running up the right side of the course, the hill is more than it looks. For the guys in the group from cat 1/2/3 it appeared to be nothing. As I watched the end of the race it was amazing the lead the two leaders had built up on the rest of the field. My lesson learned from this race is for next year I’ll stick to cat 5.

The Leva Crit went a lot better for me. We had lots of time to warm up and ride the course as it took extra time to clear all the cars off the streets. Good work by Kingsway Towing. I had a better start this time and stayed with the pack. The course map follows:

This course is flatter and only 4 corners. We flew through the 30 minutes of the race. Two guys made an early attack and held the lead for the rest of the race. The rest of us pretty much worked together in a good pace line. in the second or third lap there a crash involving a single rider from H&r Block on the southeast corner and from what I heard his bike was broken but I did see the rider walking around after the race so he mustn’t have been hurt too badly. The rest of race was uneventful. apart from a little confusion over the last lap. Everyone in the group worked hard and personally i had a great ride.

Having riden in 3 crits so far this year I can say that I really enjoy them. I’m quite amazed at my change in attitude, at the begining of the year I felt I wasn’t ready to compete in a crit from what I heard about them. Now I find them a real rush. The element of danger and pushing ones handling skills to limit get the adrenaline pumping. I also love the feel of my bike as I corner it hard, I even scraped a pedal once on Sunday I was leaning so much.  I haven’t got the offical results yet but I think I placed 15th, so I starting to move up a bit in my performance, something I didn’t really expect for this season. So time to start tinking about my next event the Stampede Race in a couple of weeks. I have a few days off this week and then time to hit the saddle hard.