A Ride in the Park

Last Sunday was the LAMBRA Criterium Champion-
ship, held once again in City Park here in New Orleans. You would think that would make things really easy for me, but between helping out with setup and officiating, the actual racing turned out to be the most relaxing part of the whole day. You see, The Daughter had arrived from Iowa some time around 12:30 am on Sunday morning. She is coaching a training camp in Pontchatoula for the team she coaches, so along with her came six young gymnasts. My own wake-up call came less than four hours later, since I had to load up the car with all of the LAMBRA equipment, plus my own bike and wheels, and get out to the park around 6:15 am. Fortunately the MSM guys had things pretty much under control, so I helped the Chief Ref. get set up. That's when I discovered that video capture software on my laptop was crashing every time it was run. Luckily, the CR was planning on using his own video camera, so even though we wouldn't have the nice big frame-by-frame video on the laptop screen, we would still be OK as long as his camera functioned (which it didn't do very well for the first race of the day).

The Masters race started fairly early in the morning when the temperature was still pretty nice. I had managed to get in two laps of warmup before lining up near the back of the smallish group. The 50-minute race started out with a flurry of attacks, and at one point I got off the front with Mark G., and thought we might be able to make it stick. We got chased down pretty quickly, though. I guess we were at least halfway through the race when another split happened, this time putting Rob, Woody and me a few seconds ahead of the pack. Although I figured MSM would soon get a chase going, I thought this combination looked good. Over the course of the next few laps we stretched the lead out to maybe 20 seconds or so. Then, with maybe five laps to go, we saw Tim trying to bridge up to us solo. Since he's Woody's teammate, Woody stopped working. Of course Rob had no interest in letting Tim catch us, so he was still willing to work. For me it didn't matter as much since I was the only 45+ rider, but I still felt like racing so Rob and I worked the next few laps and on the bell lap I took a long final pull as we approached the museum circle. When I started to fade about halfway around, Rob jumped hard. Woody had to get around me before he could really start his sprint and the two of them just jettisoned me like a spent booster rocket. Woody got the win in a photo-finish. I was happy that our break survived because 3rd place was worth enough cash to cover my next entry fee an hour or so later.

The Cat. 1/2/3 race started our surprisingly calmly. I'd been expecting Kenny to do his trademark attack from the start, but in fact the Herring guys were planning on waiting until a little later in the 75-minute race before really putting on the pressure. Even so, there were a number of attacks and some significant breaks, and I found myself doing a bit of work chasing a few of them down. Brandon was riding really well and taking a couple of primes and helping chase down some of the breaks. We were probably half-way into the race when Diego attacked hard coming out of the U-turn and I had to really bury myself just to stay with him. I thought it might be the big break, but he eased up and everything came back together. Then, just a little later, he attacked again and a few riders went clear. For a while the pack was holding the gap, but when I saw Tim attack and start to bridge up to them, I knew we were in trouble. Soon the 4-rider group began pulling away and there just wasn't enough horsepower left in the pack to mount another successful chase. Finally, the pack gave up the chase and set its sights on 5th place. Overall, I think the pace of the Cat. 1/2/3 race was probably a bit slower than the Masters race had been. Anyway as it came down to the bell lap I pulled alongside Brandon and said, "You need to be first out of that last corner." I took him (and probably a couple others) up to the front and did a long final pull through the back side of the course, hoping to keep the pace fast enough to delay the start of the sprint a bit and keep him in a good position so he'd have a shot at the sprint. I wasn't quite successful at that, as the attack came on the bridge before the museum circle and a bunch of riders went streaming past on the left. Somehow, though, Brandon got himself in there and he and Mark G. battled it out for the pack sprint where Brandon ended up 6th overall and 3rd among the Cat. 3s.

The weather was great this year and the course is a pretty nice one. Somehow it always seems to promote successful breakaways even though I wouldn't say it's extremely technical. I guess that acceleration after the U-turn eventually takes its toll, though. It was a fun event. We're still trying to sort out a few issues with the results. It sure would help if people would wait around long enough to check the results at the race. I mean, that's why we post them and have a 15-minute protest period. When they send me an email the next day saying that they think they were placed incorrectly, it's not always very easy to check out. Some of the results go home with the Chief Referee, some end up with one of the other Refs, some get lost, etc. Word to the wise: If you care about where you placed, stay around until the results are posted.

Results and Photos: http://www.lambra.org/results/2009/LAMBRA_Crit_2009_r.htm