Time to catch up with all the races since March. Most of my posts are detailed recounts of everything that happened leading up to and including race day. Getting ready for Gavin to be born, school work, my job, and trying to get things done around the house has pushed reporting to the wayside. So to get up to date I am going to do a race report similar to what you would get on a team website or in a journal.
Redlands Classic- Fresh off my crash at the TdM I lined up at the Redlands Classic. Anne was sick that weekend so I was racing with no supporters. The race was very fast, as expected with a national race calendar race. Last year I think I made 5 laps before I was way off the back and maybe 7 before I was pulled. This year I stayed near the middle of the field for the whole race. There were a number of crashes especially on the sharp corner after the uphill finishing straight. There was a big crash in the final corner that almost caught my teammate and I but we managed a 27th and 28th place finish respectively.
Cyclevets Classic- Fun course, only one turn and then the rest was a big oval. There was only a small hill on the back side so it was fast. I started near the front of the field. I was in the top 10 for the first 30 minutes of the race. With 5 laps to go I started to fall back some. I couldn’t figure out why I was falling back. With one lap to go there was a huge crash at the finish line for some reason I decided to swing out to the left on that lap. Every other lap I moved to the inside at the start finish line. Luckily for me the crash was on the right and I missed it. My teammate went down and was knocked out. I finished 26th and realized after I finished that my tire in the front was flat.
Dana Point Grand Prix- I was really looking forward to this race. I had fun at the course last year and it was the last race that I was pulled from. I knew that I would be able to finish this year as a CAT 4. It was the biggest starting field that I have ever been in, 143 people. I was sitting around 30th with 5 laps to go. I was trying to move up on the outside when I noticed someone go into the hay bales in turn one. I locked up the breaks but there was a second crash in the middle of the road. Everything happened very quickly and all I remember is that my back tire was locked on and bouncing off bikes all over the road. I don’t know how I stayed upright. I remember bouncing off a couple different racers and then my rear derailleur caught on someone’s frame and locked up my chain. I had to stop fix the chain and then I was way too far back to catch up.
From what I understand a rider in the back of the field crashed the lap before. Two motorcycle cops stopped just after the turn and blocked the rider. No one notified the riders that there were two vehicles blocking the road right after the turn. The field was traveling at about 33MPH. The leader of the middle line hit the bike in the middle of the road. It broke his frame in half and he was pretty scraped up. The guy that hit the hay bale was trying to get around the second motorcycle. All I saw were bikes flying and riders squeezing together. There was no damage to my bike thankfully but I was disappointed to not finish the race for the second year in a row.
Overall the races went good. I have made huge gains since last year. I talked to a guy that I met last year in the CAT 5’s. Last year he was able to finish races when I was getting spit off the back. We both moved into the CAT 4’s this year and he is now getting spit off the back. I am finishing in the top 25 at most races. I am looking forward to continuing in my improvement and turning my focus towards triathlons in the future.
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