icebreaker 2009

Half Acre Crit Series, Cat 4/5

No prizes, no primes, no lights (!), just a bunch of guys shaking off the winter.

Monday
First the ladies: Jamie had a solid outing, but it had to be tough in a field of six. 20 mph crosswinds made it possible to ride in the gutter, leaving nothing to draft. They split into 3 and 3, and I missed the details, but she came in at 5th.

In the men's race, Mike and I were up front and staying out of trouble, pushing the pace, covering stuff, letting little gaps open that others had to close down, finding the gutters out of the wind. Nothing too fancy, but throwing the gauntlet down here and there, softening the pack without killing ourselves.

Unfortunately, the 3-5 minute tempo before the sprint put the hurt on me. It would have been nice to have a tempo/leadout/sprint train, but frankly, I wasn't quite up to the call.

But not a bad plan, considering we had no plan: Jeff was rested and ready for the sprint, and he lit it up. Ernie (Van Wagner/Yojimbo's) was the only one able to contest it, and he came around Jeff to take it by maybe half a wheel. Considering he's a tree-legged cat 2 trackie, not too surprising. Mike held on for 9th and I was 3 spots or so behind him, but they didn't map the placings that deep so I'll never know. We got a spot on the podium, a top ten...and a domestique in the bunch. I'm ok with that.