Memorial Park Crit #5 2011

6/29/2011

Another great crit put on by Greg and Sun and Ski Sports!  This week the crit was run clockwise around the picnic loop, which seems to be most people’s preferred direction.

The Shama team came out with high hopes.  We were going to try and keep the race together and duke it out in the sprint.  Jon would sit in for the sprint, Bill would mainly be bringing breaks back, and I would be bringing breaks back and/or counterattacking moves.  This means re-attacking after a breakaway is caught.  The plan worked pretty well, although we don’t have the sprint down quite yet.

Many attacks went up the road, and Bill did a great job of keeping the pace high and bringing them back.  Usually in this race, a break with strong riders will go up the road, and the peloton will sit up with no one willing to chase.  This has historically been the winning breakaway, but not this time.  We kept the race together as a team, which I am very proud of.  Even though we didn’t win, we worked together and did something to affect the race.  We decided how we wanted the race to end up and made it happen.

The sprint is another story.  We simply have not had enough practice to be a force in the sprint.  Bike Barn does a great job with their lead-out train, and consequently won the race.  Considering we only had 3 guys in the race, two of which were working most of the time, I’m not surprised we had trouble with the sprint. Jon was fresh, but did not have good placing going into the last laps, and did not have teammates to get him to the front.

This makes me excited for the race this weekend!  We should be able to have some good results!