St. Cloud Crit - I suck!

7.25.06 - Damn! I'm glad I'm better at programming than I am at biking.

The race started out great. I was positioned well in the pack, coming through all the turns smoothly. About 5 or 6 laps in, there was a big crash in turn 1, and pretty much the whole Tonka team went down. I got held up for a few seconds, but was able to chase back on after about 2 laps. Almost as soon as I got back into the group there was another crash, in which someone went down in a turn and took out a couple Grandstay guys (Ben and Slick). Both went over there bars, and I heard a big POP! I got held up behind this crash for quite a while, and the race was all downhill from there.

Rudy, Jake, and I lost contact with the group, and we picked up Ben on the next lap when he was unable to tag on to the back of the lead group after taking his free lap. The four of us worked well together, but we were never able to make up any time on the lead group of about 15. We picked up a couple stragglers along the way, and a group of 6 of us came to the line together. I didn't want to risk crashing in the all-important race for not-quite-last place, so I just backed off and let the other guys duel it out.

I ended up DFL out of the riders that finished. I take some comfort knowing that 14 guys didn't finish at all, but I was still last. It's kind of demoralizing, especially considering how much I've been training. Oh well, I'll get 'em next time. I felt like I rode strong, I just made some tactical errors and had some bad luck being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the crashes (But not as bad as the riders who actually crashed. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt...lots of road rash though).

The masters 35+ race was cool to watch, with St. Cloud rider John Bagley decimating the field.

Overall, it was a fun day. The event was well-run, results were posted before I even got home, and a lot of people showed up for the festivities.