Crit Day

Today was the crit downtown Nashville. I started at 9am and almost missed my start (I was there early, but didn't pay attention). Anyway, the course was decent with one long steady climb, but it wasn't steep. However it wore me down. About 6 min in, I hit a chunk of cement sticking up on a corner at about 28mph and it blew out my front tire. I didn't crash, but almost. So I rode to the "pit" and the SRAM support guys gave me a Zipp wheel (about an $800 wheel) to race on. The wheel broke my computer sensor and made noise the whole race. No sneaking up on anyone. When you hit the pit, you get a free lap, so I could stand and rest and they'd let me back in the race where I was. I actually got back to the position I was in before the flat. After my flat, they circled the spot I hit with chalk. Nice. I rode well, but that hill wore me out. I fell off the lead group with 6 laps left (about 5 min) in the race.

Long story short, I thought my lead group lapped half the field (we did lap a lot of people), but then suddenly our group of 10 blew up to 18 or so. I swore those guys were lapped, hence they can't contest the sprint and finish. Anyway, they were on the lead lap. I ended up riding solo and finished 48 sec back in 18th out of 35 guys or so. Not bad, but I need to work on hills.

I watched all the other races after mine and had a blast watching a few guys crash, chatting with folks, and getting to know my teammates better. The pros were smoking up the course and 2 guys easily lapped the entire field in the first 12 min or so. Then they just hung in with the main field. Crazy race. Those pros are amazing, even if one somehow fell over while all by himself. His wheels just went out from under him. Weird. He was ok though.