Ion Village Crit

Sunday I did the Ion Village Crit. I was glad to be racing again after doing no competitions for almost a month because of a combination of sickness and some other problems. This race was also special to me because the last time I did it was in 2006. Back then it was only my 3rd race, but now it would be my 73rd.

The course was a nontechnical, dead flat oval loop, not exactly the best terrain for me, but nonetheless I wanted to do be aggresive and get a high finish. After a long warmup I lined up for the 4 race in the 2nd row.

The race started pretty fast and I got in a break on the 2nd lap. I bridged from the pack to the 3rd group to the 2nd group, but we didn't come close to catching the 2 leaders and were caught after less than a minute, having never gotten more than a few seconds ahead. After that I took some time to recover, and over the next few laps I went from a good position to a bad position to an OK position to a good one again. There were some breakaways, but the course wasn't decisive enough to allow a threatening break to form.

With 2 laps to go I was in 8th place. The race was slow but dangerous, with near crashes on each corner. With one lap to go I fell back a lot, and took a lot of risks to move up from then on. On the 2nd to last corner there was a crash, and I narrowly avoided it. But I chose the wrong side of the pack to be on, and was in 15th or 20th around the last corner. Desperate to move up, I went into the corner at over 30 miles per hour and really overshot it. I flew off the road, bunny hoped a pothole, and almost crashed into a fence. Thankfully I stayed upright and rode the last 300 meters by myself to get 39th out of about 50.

Here are the facts from the race

21.1 miles
50 minute long race
25.1 mph.

I'll post some pictures as soon as I can.