Criterium Criteria

It's kind of nice to see a few more one-day Criteriums around here. For a while, it seemed like every weekend was either a stage race or an omnium, and although they invariably included criteriums, it isn't quite the same when there's that "overall" weekend time or points total at stake. Some criterium are very simple affairs and some are huge, complicated events. Most of those around here tend to the more simple end of that spectrum. In some ways, that's a good thing, especially for the newer criterium riders.  It can be a little intimidating jumping into your first crit and having to deal with the faster speeds, harder accelerations, and technical, sometimes scary, high-speed cornering all at once, especially if you aren't one of the stronger riders in the pack to start with. Fortunately, smaller scale criteriums ease the transition a little bit by having much smaller and less aggressive fields. Last weekend's Tour de Gulfport criterium was a case in point.  Here was a nicely organized criterium on city streets with a couple of technical corners, just a touch of topography, a few wide and fast corners, and a long wide finish stretch. Added bonuses were ample barricades, road furniture protected by hay bales, food and drink, and a nice deep prizelist on top of USAC championship medals.

With a slightly threatening weather forecast, pre-registration for the race was pretty low. There was a reasonable chance of rain, it was Father's Day weekend, and the race-day entry fee was only about $1.50 more than the combined pre-registration entry fee plus the online service charge. I was worried that field sizes would be embarassing, especially since the City of Gulfport was pretty directly involved in the event. As it turned out, there were a fair number of race-day entries, so in the end they were up to 108. Granted, an event like this should have seem more like 150 at least, but I guess we have to take what we can get.

So I drove over to Gulfport, which is less than an hour and a half away, with Candy early enough to get there while they were still setting up the venue. I was bringing the USAC medals and the race radios, but wasn't planning on doing any officiating. The Masters race was one of the first, and I was glad to see that the field size was  up to 23, which was about twice what pre-registration had been. We had a bunch of riders from Peake Racing, a few from Palmer and Bike Crossing, and one or two from some of the other area clubs. Notable by its absence was Acadiana.

The 50-minute race started out pretty smoothly, and really for the most part there were not a whole lot of attacks. I was feeling OK, but was kind of expecting some fireworks that never quite materialized. Various surges and minor attacks ensued, and the group thinned out just a bit from attrition, and eventually on rider rolled off the front and built up a lead of perhaps 10 seconds. There wasn't a very organized effort by anyone to chase it down, and after a few laps Matt launched a solo pursuit. I thought that if and when he made contact with the lead rider they would have a very good chance of staying out there, considering the dwindling pack. When he made contact, they were about three city blocks up the road and I though it was looking pretty good for them as we were getting down to the last six or seven laps of the race. As it turned out, though, the original breakaway rider was a little toasted by then and wasn't working with Matt, so with maybe four to go I could tell that the gap was getting smaller. By then the pack could smell blood, and things picked up significantly. With two to go I knew we would make the catch and indeed that happened on the bell lap.

So during the last few laps I had been trying to move up closer to the front, and as we rounded the first couple of turns on the last lap I was thinking I was in a pretty good place, maybe five riders back. Then between turn 3 and 4 everyone else decided to move up too and I got pushed over to the left, narrowly avoiding a disasterous encounter with a steel barricade and hay bale that was kind of randomly placed on top of a dip in the road where there was a storm drain. I very nearly crashed as I yelled something that was hopefully inintelligible, ran over the foot of the barricade, had to touch the brake, and lost three or four spots with half a lap to go. I was pretty screwed for the sprint at that point, but did manage to reclaim one or two spots, coming around the last corner maybe 6th wheel for the ensuing drag race to the line. Of course, by then the first three places were already way up the road, but I found myself on Matt's wheel as he motored past a few riders who kind of sat up before the finish. I didn't have the heart, or energy, to jump past him at the line and ended up 6th, which under the circumstances I was pretty happy with. By then it was starting to get hotter and although there were some big clouds around it was looking like the rain was going to miss Gulfport.

Tailgunning as usual

A little while later I went ahead and signed up for the Cat. 1/2 race. This was one of the rare events around here that offered separate Cat. 1/2 and Cat. 3 races, and there were fewer riders registered for the 1/2 race than there were prizes in the prizelist, so I figured I'd get in some exercise rather than stand around watching. I was planning on staying at the race until the end of the final race so that I could bring the results home with me for posting. For this race I was strictly in Tailgunner mode, which pretty much guarantees you'll be dropped at some point as gaps open up in front of you. Fortunately, the pace wasn't super-fast, so I was fairly comfortable sitting back among the last few riders, but I knew there would be some action eventually.  We were only about fifteen minutes into the 60-minute race when Jaden rolled off the front. With a little blocking by his teammates he quickly established a big gap, but I was still thinking it was pretty early for such a move to be successful.  On the other hand, we'd started with only 14 riders, and of the remaining 13, four were his teammates. Palmer and Bike Crossing made up the next largest contingents, but a number of those guys had also raced the Masters race earlier. It was also starting to get pretty warm. Anyway, although Jaden got a nice gap right away, there were some good efforts to bring him back, and when those started I quietly made my exit out the back door. That was around 20 minutes in when Taco suddenly sat up. I don't know what happened there and he was gone by the time we finished, so I never found out.

After I dropped off, the pack split in two, so there was Jaden out solo, then a small group of like four, another gap, and then another group of four or six or something.  So I rode around solo for a number of laps and was planning to hop onto Jaden's wheel when I got lapped.  Jaden's a really smooth rider and I knew it would be fairly easy for me to sit on his wheel. Unfortunately, when I stood up to catch his wheel, which was on the only little one-block uphill on the course, I felt both calves start to cramp. I was quite surprised by that even though I'd already done the masters race and it was getting pretty warm. I haven't had muscle cramp issues in a short race like this in years, and I kind of suspect that it had something to do with the electrolyte drink I'd filled my bottle with before the race.  I usually use nothing but water. Anyway, despite the impending leg cramps I got Jaden's wheel and followed him around for a lap before dropping off for some more quiet time and to see if my legs might recover a bit.  A little while later I found myself on Ed's wheel. Surprisingly he had gotten dropped out of the first chase group. I guess he'd pretty much worked himself over in the master's race and first part of the Cat. 1/2 race. After a few laps of that we were caught by some more riders and so for the final laps I was sitting in with the remnant of the second chase group and eventually cruised in, snagging 12th place, which in this case was DFL.  It was actually pretty enjoyable since I hadn't gone into that race with any expectations other than getting a workout. Somehow, we got through the entire day witout a drop of rain. Back in New Orleans it had been raining all day, so I'd definitely made the right call!