Mike's Bike Blog

In day 9 of my VO2 Max training program called for either a criterium (crit) or fartlek (a form of conditioning which puts stress mainly on the aerobic energy system due to the continuous nature of this exercise). I haven't made it out to the Driveway Series Crit at all this season to race myself. I figured this was as good of a time to get back out as any.

It was a hot one out there, at the 6:10pm start time for the Cat 4/5 it was 104 degrees. I was a little apprehensive about the course they were running today. The City Course (pictured below) has 9 turns in .8 miles. The sharpest turn is turn 3 over by the house, I believe it was described as 120 degree turn. I'd heard from a few seasoned veterans  that called it a hard course because of all the turns and no long straight aways to get back up to speed and/or recover from the hard sprint out of the corners. The course fit nicely into the overall goal for my workout.

At the start the starter was going over the rules, he pointed out that unlike most races that due to the nature of the course with all it's turns that they would be pulling riders. I guess the last time they ran this particular course there were several pile ups and crashes. From the get go we were moving. The first 10 minutes I averaged 24.3 mph. It was around this time that on turn 8 I almost went down! I'm not sure exactly what happened, but my rear tire started to go out from under me and I thought I heard metal scraping. I thought I might have layed the bike too far into the turn. In any event I was able to keep the bike up, but I think the guy behind me clipped my back wheel on the corner. No sooner had I started to get back up to speed then there was an actual crash in the pack that sent 2 riders screeching to the pavement as they came out of turn 9. This forced me to slow and go around the carnage just as I was catching back on. At least I had the long straight away to work my way back up. For the next lap or so I was tentative around the corners because at the time I wasn't sure what happened if my tire slipped or what. It wasn't until after the race that it finally dawned on me that I might have been clipped. I base that theory on the comment from the guy directly behind me after I got out of the fishtail he said "Man that was scary", he just might have been scared I was going to go down right in front of him, but based on no marks on my skewer I'm pretty sure I was clipped by him.

For the next 5 minutes I teetered on the back trying desperately to work my way back up to a better position. It seemed I could make progress after turn 3, 5 and 9 but any gains would be quickly erased. What would make it even harder was there would be little gaps starting to form at the back where the very back on the pack was starting to lose contact with the main group. Unfortunately, I was in the back of this back pack and I was fighting desperately to get passed them. This constant battle finally took its toll on me and with a fizzle I was off the back. I continued to claw my way around the track, picking up and pulling a few others that were relieved of the pack status as well. I was cooked however and fading fast. At the 20 minute mark the officials directed me and my 2 comrades to hit the showers.

I am disappointed that I didn't get to finish the race, but in hindsight what I should have done was pulled over at the official tent when they flagged us off and asked to take my lap. Not sure if they would have allowed it or not, but if so got back on and tried to stay with the group as they came around, it appeared we still had 1/2 a lap before we would have been caught. Right after we were pulled guys were getting shelled left and right from the pack.

From a workout standpoint it met the goal of working out my aerobic energy system.    Other positives to take away from the race:

• I didn't crash
• I averaged 24.3 mph and was able to stay with the pack for the 1st 15 minutes. Far better than the other time I raced a crit.
• Until I popped the first 14.5 minutes didn't seem overly difficult and were manageable.
• Even when I was popped I averaged 22.8 mph
• The corners didn't pose a problem from a bike handling standpoint. I was quite pleased with that aspect and I quickly bounced back from my near miss.

I had a good time and I'd like to get out for at least one more race before fall hits and there's no more driveway races till next spring.