Risk vs Reward
Tonight a few of us rode around in circles for a while, some faster than others. Some much faster than others. That's pretty much my race report.
To be honest, I wasn't all there tonight. The Masters were mixed in with the really fast kids. Because our usual crit course is torn up for road work, we did a circuit around a local high school. One turn was a little tight for my comfort level, and the resulting bunching and accordion effect meant a sprint every time we exited that corner. I was holding fine in a tail-gunner position, even through I was having to sprint longer than I should have to latch back on. However, when we started bunching up in that tight corner and I almost ate it a couple times, I sat up a third of the way through the race and let the pack go. It wasn't worth it.
There were only four Masters in the race, and two had already dropped a few laps before. Markus hung with the pack the rest of the race, and he said he was shattered just trying to sit in. That means I would have been shelled at the 3/4 point at best. I can only sprint out of a turn so many times before I can't. Among us old farts, Markus is a beast.
Since I wasn't interested in doing a 30min time trial, I rode relatively easy until Ed caught up, then swapped pulls for the remainder of the race. Somewhere along the line we lapped Tony, and he latched on for the duration. We got lapped a couple times with our moderate pace, and we tried to stay out of the way as we puttered along.
When the last lap finally came, Ed was pretty much shot, so I pulled away and coasted in for my embarrassing and distant 2nd place Masters Men finish.
Nah, it wasn't that embarrassing. I just wasn't willing to put it all on the line with the Tour of Fairbanks coming up so soon. The end result would have been the same, and my whole goal for the race was to get a little intensity in and keep the rubber side down.
Mission accomplished.
To be honest, I wasn't all there tonight. The Masters were mixed in with the really fast kids. Because our usual crit course is torn up for road work, we did a circuit around a local high school. One turn was a little tight for my comfort level, and the resulting bunching and accordion effect meant a sprint every time we exited that corner. I was holding fine in a tail-gunner position, even through I was having to sprint longer than I should have to latch back on. However, when we started bunching up in that tight corner and I almost ate it a couple times, I sat up a third of the way through the race and let the pack go. It wasn't worth it.
There were only four Masters in the race, and two had already dropped a few laps before. Markus hung with the pack the rest of the race, and he said he was shattered just trying to sit in. That means I would have been shelled at the 3/4 point at best. I can only sprint out of a turn so many times before I can't. Among us old farts, Markus is a beast.
Since I wasn't interested in doing a 30min time trial, I rode relatively easy until Ed caught up, then swapped pulls for the remainder of the race. Somewhere along the line we lapped Tony, and he latched on for the duration. We got lapped a couple times with our moderate pace, and we tried to stay out of the way as we puttered along.
When the last lap finally came, Ed was pretty much shot, so I pulled away and coasted in for my embarrassing and distant 2nd place Masters Men finish.
Nah, it wasn't that embarrassing. I just wasn't willing to put it all on the line with the Tour of Fairbanks coming up so soon. The end result would have been the same, and my whole goal for the race was to get a little intensity in and keep the rubber side down.
Mission accomplished.
Comments
Post a Comment