I had only ridden my time trial bike once for 30 minutes since I last raced it in July 2010....I don't really like time trialing. We had a good inter-team battle since most of us started about the same time. No surprise that Big John and his ultra-sleek machine blew by a few of us. I felt good about my race, and averaged about 25.5 mph...that was good enough for second to last in the P12 field!!
The criterium started at 7:45 pm--about 11 hours after my TT ended. I guess I should have been refreshed, but I was groggy and worn out from the TT effort and 90+ heat. The course was tear-drop shaped, with one 90 degree turn at the top of a stout climb in a heavily wooded area. About 30 racers started the P12 race, and that number started shrinking pretty quickly due to the gaps formed on the climb. At about 17 minutes into the race a freak event happened--a deer bounded out into the middle of the peleton just as we were hitting 35+ mph. The poor guy that got hit ended up with multiple serious injuries; a few other riders were taken out as well by the deer and/or other riders. I managed to escape by riding over 2 bikes and maybe one rider...if I had locked up the brakes I would have gone down for sure. The race was stopped to allow medics to attend to the wounded, and due to approaching darkness it was then cancelled. This is the second race where a deer took out a racer right before my eyes!
The main issue on my mind for Sunday's road race was heat/hydration. Thankfully Betty Jean Jordan graciously volunteered to hand out bottles to John , Jake and me at the 60 mile point of our 90 mile race. The course was fairly flat, but with 22 turns per lap so it was pretty tricky as there were no signs and few marshals. My role for the team was to go in or chase down any serious looking breakaway early in the race. Luckily for me nothing serious went during the first lap. By this time I was back in the groove of racing and ready for action. I ended up rolling to the front and then following a strong surge off the front by Jafer Beizer. We ended up forming a five-man breakaway with a couple of the bigger more powerful teams represented. We worked pretty well together, though I felt that we would probably be caught as we had 50 miles or so to go and a couple of the strongest teams (RealCyclist and Aerocat) were not in with us. At about 15 miles to go we were caught by a group of eight. Unfortunately John and Jake were not in this group having ended up on the wrong side of a split from an attack in the feed zone (not an ethical race tactic especially on a 95 degree day). I was on the front as this happened and Caesar Grajales of RealCyclist and a Hincapie devo racer went zooming by in a counter attack. Unfortunately nobody reacted and they were gone in no time. A flurry of attacks dwindled our number by a couple. I felt strong but had fought off some muscle cramping earlier and so I didn't attempt any attacks. I misjudged the distance to the finish and ended up in the very back as the group started the final sprint to the line. I managed to pass a couple of racers for 9th place.
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