On the Tarmac

Sunday morning's 4 a.m. alarm was decidedly unwelcome, as was the queasy feeling I'd had in my stomach since around noon the day before. Something I ate? So I figured my best bet was to stick with the PowerBar diet until it all felt better. Charlie showed up right on time at 4:30 and we hit the road East for the Breakers Criterium, about two and a half hours away at an old Navy air station. All that's there now, as far as I can tell, are the nicely paved runways. Imagine a triangular criterium course with each side a bit more than 0.3 miles, on the equivalent of a 4-lane highway, without a tree within a quarter mile. I figured I'd really hate this course.


We arrived in plenty of time. On the menu for the masters were a 35-49 age group and a 50+ age group, which meant that I'd have to both admit my racing age and enter as 50+. As was the case for all of the events, the field size was small. Maybe 20 for the combined masters race. In addition to myself, NOBC had only Charlie and Jaro on hand. The race was surprisingly good. There were lots of attacks and a few breaks. Knowing that Jaro was back there resting his legs for the sprint meant that my job for the day would be to chase down the breaks, a couple of which involved long pulls at 28-30 mph. Charlie would often follow up with attacks, forcing the others to chase. In the end everything was back together. Toward the end of the race there was a crash when one of the riders put his front quick-release into Jay S's rear wheel. Somehow Jay stayed up despite losing half the high-priced spokes on one side of his rear wheel (the other guy wasn't so lucky). Jay was back in the race a couple of laps later, though. Eddie C., who I had been expecting to go for a solo break toward the end, was dealing with a soft front tire in the final laps and couldn't sprint. (During the cool-down lap his tire blew out completely). One of the other top riders from Florida who often rides the Tour de La, flatted toward the end too, after the "no more free laps" point.


Coming into the last turn things ramped up pretty good and I found myself maybe 6th wheel with Jaro one or two ahead of me. For some reason the leading riders were coming into the last turn really wide and Jaro took the opportunity to dive through the inside of the turn with me on his wheel. Even though it was a long way yet to the finish, he didn't hesitate and charged for the line. I dropped all the way down to the 12 as he accelerated up to 36 mph., listening carefully for the sound of someone coming up from behind. He hesitated for a second, looking back at me, and I yelled "go Jaro." ...and he went. I didn't want to start pulling around him because it just would have given an advantage to whoever might have been on my wheel, so I hung back just a bit and we finished 1,2. (Since I was 50+, I guess it was 1,1).



After the Masters race we had almost three hours before the Cat. 1,2,3 race, during which time it poured down rain - mostly for the Cat. 4 race. A couple of Red Bull chicks came by with free Red Bull drinks, so I got Jaro to take a picture so we can submit it to pezcyclingnews.com's "distractions" page. I like that Red Bull stuff, and it seemed to agree with my gradually improving stomach. Although the rain stopped for the start of the 1,2,3 race, the road was very wet and gritty and we had an off-and-on light rain throughout. On hand for this one was Scott K, who had just won the Alabama state road race the day before, and teammate Kenny B. The pace started out pretty fast as Scott made a few exploratory trips off the front. Finally the group started to split after one of the turns and I saw Jaro jump out of the bunch to make a last-minute bridge. That 5-rider group stayed off the rest of the race. I started to try and bridge shortly after Jaro went, but a couple of riders started chasing and Charlie yelled at me to let them go since Jaro was in there. So after that, things really shut down in the pack for a while. Eventually the break was so far out there that there were a few attacks but nothing was allowed to stick. With maybe six or seven laps left the break lapped the field and everyone was back together for a while. There was the usual confusion (including the officials) about this, but since they weren't pulling lapped riders there shouldn't have been any. Still, there are always some people who think that lapped riders can't work with the others in a crit, which is definitely not the case. In the interest of rider education, here's the 411 on that:

3D3. The following are alternative methods for handling lapped riders in criteriums (i.e. riders who have been caught by the lead rider(s) in the race). The method chosen by the organizer with the Chief Referee must be clearly explained to the riders prior to the start of the race.
(a) A rider who falls so far behind as to be considered out of contention may be removed from the race by the Chief Referee.
(b) Alternatively, lapped riders may be permitted to remain in the race and all will finish on the same lap as the leaders. At the finish, these riders will be placed according to the number of the laps they are down and then their position in the finish.
3D4. Riders on different laps may work with each other except that no rider may drop back to assist a rider who has broken away from the field [disqualification for accepting such assistance].

(There's also the Field Finish Option, but implementing that in a short criterium is so problemmatic that I have never seen it done.)

Anyway, I think it was Scott who attacked and I really had to dig to stay with them. The result was that the break separated itself from the pack, except for me. Ahhh. I felt like I was in a race again for the last few laps there, although I was reluctant to do anything to affect their finish, so I just sat impatiently on the back. In the end, Jaro jumped just past the last turn from practically the last spot and passed everyone, but then Scott got in a final kick and nipped him at the line. So Jaro ended up 2nd which made for a real good day for him!! So surprisingly, I loved this course. You could fly through the turns, even in the rain, people could attack and come past 15 feet to one side or the other of the pack, etc. It was definitely different!

The combination of the rain and the dirt and other gunk on the runways made us all look like we had just finished a muddy 'cross race by the time we were done. I was picking sand out of my ears and hair all the way home.