MO State Crit

I wasn't sure about going to the MO crit. I've been pretty excited to race cross in the fall and have been working on base miles for that. Anyway, I decided pretty late (on the Sta PV ride) that it would be good to go and support the team and check out the race. I've never been to Jeff City before but almost everyone likes the crit course.

I showed up about an hour before the race, got registered and found out there were going to be about 50 guys in the race. Pretty awesome. My goal was to cover moves and support the team. The race started out at a nice quick pace, and my legs weren't too happy about that. I just tailgunned it for a few laps, then started to try and move up, but didn't make it very far. So I just sat and waited for the pace to ease up. When the first prime was called about 30 mins in, the pace did ease up on the backside, so I launched after Adam Mills and another rider going for the prime. When I got up to them we were about to get caught, so I sat near the front waiting for a counter.

Two great shots from Flannery Allison.

There was another move immediately after, so I just followed wheels and we were clear too. This was a bigger group that continued to go over the next few laps until there were over a dozen riders. At this point people started to skip pulls and let gaps open. There was another prime, so I jumped from that group figuring it would draw a couple of others looking for cash. But nobody came with me. So I just kept riding assuming this would at least give our guys in the group rest before the sprint. I just kept it steady and stayed out for about 5 laps when I saw a small chase coming up with Austin Vinton, Justin Maciekowicz, and Josh Leibowitz. It looked like they had a pretty good gap to the field, so I sat in and took some pulls as I could. With 2 to go we still had 30 seconds and were rotating well. I tried to position myself well for the finish, and put myself on Austin's wheel, but ran out of gas up the last little rise to the finish and ended up 4th. The sprint was just behind us and teammate Jim ended up 10th. Earlier in the day, Brian Bradley won the M40+ race, so in all, it was a pretty good day for the team.

Colavita Cross Country Challenge

A few weeks back I did the CCCC MTB race. It was a great event. I'd not ridden the Wyandotte Lake trails prior to a few days before the race, but was impressed. The Colavita crew did a great job putting on the event and it looked like a very solid showing of racers.

As far as the actual race went, I had some issues. I didn't start well because I was apprehensive about leading the first quarter of the lap. It took about 4 laps to catch on to the leader Roger Williams, and then shortly after I crashed hard, chased hard, started cramping a bit and had to shut things down considerably to keep going the rest of the way.

The whole MTB thing is pretty darn fun. I hope to work on enough skills to be able to go hard without being in constant danger of crashing.

Ok, a few more road races this year before the real season starts!