Parkside Criterium Series - Week 1 - March 11 - Masters 40+
Beautiful day for racing. Sunny, 50 degrees, slight wind from the west. With everybody eager to get out and turn their pedals in anger, the great day brought out a huge turnout.
Today, I'm not expecting a lot as far as personal results go. I've been dealing with some medical issues since January that have me about 800 training miles behind schedule and my race readiness is suspect. My sprint usually doesn't show up until after I've got a month's worth of race paced efforts in me so I'll probably be watching teammate Dan Verner's back since he's cranking out huge watts these days and was dominant at the indoor time trials. Dan and I will be joined today by new 40+ Mike Zellman (happy birthday, Mike). Mike is a great time trialist so he's also a threat to go up the road.
The 40+ field today is 40 riders strong with a lot of fast regional talent. Jeff Littman is back after a one year hiatus to recover from a near fatal encounter with a 4 x 4 sign post at the final crit of '05. Welcome back, Jeff. You're looking good.
The early laps saw more attacks than usual for the first crit of the year but nothing got away until about the 15 minute mark when LAPT time trialist, Dave Schimp got away and built a good gap. After a few counter attacks that Dan, Mike and I covered, Dan went with a move with three others that got away. Mike and I immediately covered the front of the field and eased the pace as best we could while covering counter attacks to give Dan and his three break partners a chance to build a gap.
Below is a shot of myself (lead) and Mike (4th) controlling the front of the field.
With a few laps to go one of Dan's break mates had a mechanical and after his pit stop he fell back to the main field so if we don't catch the break, the field will be sprinting for 5th place.
As we came down to the last two laps the usual Parkside shenanigans of "I'll sit on the back for 40 minutes and then move to the front at the end of the race" started. Mike went to the front and began to time trial to pick up the pace and keep the rabble rousers in check. I did my best to pick up Mike's wheel but Jeff Littman was having none of it so I pulled in behind Jeff as we got the bell for one lap to go.
I don't know why but I managed to get mentally sidetracked (winter rustyness, I guess) and as we came out of turn three what I knew would happen did and I was caught napping when Chris Dial and Richard Adamczyk attacked off the back coming down the slope out of turn three and I didn't respond quickly enough.
Mike managed to grab their wheels with a quick acceleration but I had to come around Littman on the outside and ended up sprinting across the gap to Mike and pretty much used up what little sprint I've got this time of year before we even got to turn four.
Mike pulled off a great sprint for a time trialist and won the field sprint for 5th place. I caught Adamczyk and Dial on the approach to the line but ran out of road before the finish line and ended up 8th. Dan won the sprint in his break group for 2nd since they never did catch Schimp who soloed for the win.
I'll take an 8th for the first race knowing if I'd been a bit smarter it could have been 5th or 6th. All three Team Mack riders in the top 8 in a field of 40 riders is a great start to the year.
Stats: 15.9 miles / 40:20 / 23.65 mph ave / 32.4 mph max / 158 ave HR / 182 max HR
Beautiful day for racing. Sunny, 50 degrees, slight wind from the west. With everybody eager to get out and turn their pedals in anger, the great day brought out a huge turnout.
Today, I'm not expecting a lot as far as personal results go. I've been dealing with some medical issues since January that have me about 800 training miles behind schedule and my race readiness is suspect. My sprint usually doesn't show up until after I've got a month's worth of race paced efforts in me so I'll probably be watching teammate Dan Verner's back since he's cranking out huge watts these days and was dominant at the indoor time trials. Dan and I will be joined today by new 40+ Mike Zellman (happy birthday, Mike). Mike is a great time trialist so he's also a threat to go up the road.
The 40+ field today is 40 riders strong with a lot of fast regional talent. Jeff Littman is back after a one year hiatus to recover from a near fatal encounter with a 4 x 4 sign post at the final crit of '05. Welcome back, Jeff. You're looking good.
The early laps saw more attacks than usual for the first crit of the year but nothing got away until about the 15 minute mark when LAPT time trialist, Dave Schimp got away and built a good gap. After a few counter attacks that Dan, Mike and I covered, Dan went with a move with three others that got away. Mike and I immediately covered the front of the field and eased the pace as best we could while covering counter attacks to give Dan and his three break partners a chance to build a gap.
Below is a shot of myself (lead) and Mike (4th) controlling the front of the field.
With a few laps to go one of Dan's break mates had a mechanical and after his pit stop he fell back to the main field so if we don't catch the break, the field will be sprinting for 5th place.
As we came down to the last two laps the usual Parkside shenanigans of "I'll sit on the back for 40 minutes and then move to the front at the end of the race" started. Mike went to the front and began to time trial to pick up the pace and keep the rabble rousers in check. I did my best to pick up Mike's wheel but Jeff Littman was having none of it so I pulled in behind Jeff as we got the bell for one lap to go.
I don't know why but I managed to get mentally sidetracked (winter rustyness, I guess) and as we came out of turn three what I knew would happen did and I was caught napping when Chris Dial and Richard Adamczyk attacked off the back coming down the slope out of turn three and I didn't respond quickly enough.
Mike managed to grab their wheels with a quick acceleration but I had to come around Littman on the outside and ended up sprinting across the gap to Mike and pretty much used up what little sprint I've got this time of year before we even got to turn four.
Mike pulled off a great sprint for a time trialist and won the field sprint for 5th place. I caught Adamczyk and Dial on the approach to the line but ran out of road before the finish line and ended up 8th. Dan won the sprint in his break group for 2nd since they never did catch Schimp who soloed for the win.
I'll take an 8th for the first race knowing if I'd been a bit smarter it could have been 5th or 6th. All three Team Mack riders in the top 8 in a field of 40 riders is a great start to the year.
Stats: 15.9 miles / 40:20 / 23.65 mph ave / 32.4 mph max / 158 ave HR / 182 max HR
posted by Mack Daddy at 11:15 AM
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