2011 Blogs
In my tweet that read “Crit-mongering tomorrow. Braaaap” I stood corrected. Apparently on the road we go vroom. Today the Webcor Team embarked on crit-dancing. Va-vroom! Day 3 of the Redlands Classic is the downtown criterium which is toward the top of my favorite course list. It is a figure-8 course with 9 corners which we wreaked havoc on for 60 minutes. The longest straight-away is the start/finish section with a slight incline into a headwind. Ya know, the kind of straight false-flat that makes you feel like your brakes are rubbing and your legs are filled with lard from the bacon you fried this morning? Fortunately our team didn’t have bacon this morning, but berry cobbler, hash browns, and eggs with sausage. Man we were as snappy as biting into a limetta.
After the start/finish straight, we turn right about 160 degrees, snag a brief tail wind respite, a right 90 degree turn, a shallow but chattered left which zooms us passed the local coffee shop. A 90 degree turn, 50m into a hard right and then another hard right onto a choppy section of pavement. Then about a 140 degree turn where crashes have happened every year I’ve been lucky enough to partake in this race. Hard left, hard right back onto the start/finish where you’re gritting you’re teeth and biting your stem in attempt to actually move forward through the strung-out pack. It’s technical, full stop.
And so in our team meeting Karen was sure to point out how important positioning would be today, because if you’re yo-yo-ing, eventually the yo-yo will go oh-no and off the back you will flow. I’m always impressed with how soon riders begin lining up at the start and today was no aberration as I was already off the back when I arrived to the start 20 minutes prior to our start. Fortunately Bec and Emily were standing proud in their green and let me shmooze in beside them, so I was only looking at a couple-few butts in front of me.
Finally the minutes ticked away as we baked on the start line. Soon the 100-woman field was strung out like a runway model as Dave Towle so eloquently puts it. The 1-mile course held points for the sprinter competition at 45-min to go, 30-min to go, and 5 laps to go. In addition to that there were a plethora of generous primes which kept the race steady for the majority of the 60 minutes. However, there was no shortage of squealing wheels, skidding carbon, and yelps of girls bouncing off asphalt.
The team did a top job of staying up-right, staying attentive and staying in the race for tomorrow’s Queen stage. HTC and Peanut Butter were the major patrollers at the front of the race, ensuring their GC positions and providing me with a wonderful hour-long motor pace session. I didn’t see it, but apparently Colavita went va-vroom with their lead-out train as Theresa Cliff-Ryan took her second sprint finish win.
Jobsagoodun to Webcor today and send us all wattage tomorrow, beginning at 10am PST, because that neutral section is a wicked pissah.