Alameda Crit

35+ 4/5 pack/75
Teammates:none
Friendly rivals: Mark Nakamura-san
The forecast called for 25-35 mph winds with gusts to 55 and rain. On the plus side, it did not start raining until midway through the second race I did. I chose to use the Hed 60 and this gave me a lot of trouble in a couple of the cross wind sections even with both hands in the drops during a few warm up laps. A few riders attacked at the gun so I just eased in behind them. Some folks did not want to keep this up and let a gap open up - at one point it was about 50 meters. I bridged up but when I checked under my arm, one of the teammates of the guys in the break had followed and dragged the rest of the field up to the break behind me... Since this had taken about nine laps I sat in and rested up for a bit. Managed to stay mid pack for a pretty long time which is good for me and only got to the back when we got the eight laps to go sign. Worked my way up to 20th by 2 laps to go, then there was a crash in the middle of the top 20 which required me to slow a lot. I was able to bridge up to the pack by 3/4 of a lap to go but that pretty much ended my race there. As we were cruising about 100 meters from the finish line I could see one of the leaders fall near the finish line with his bike falling away from him so we had to ease up to avoid the carnage.

M 68 kg

P 185
S 24.1
C 75
H 174
NP 209
IF 0.85



4 dnf/50
Teammates:David Porter
Friendly rivals: Kelyn, Elliot and Rory.

I had about fifteen minutes to get ready for the next race. I am not sure if it was the wind picking up or smaller field leading to less shelter or fatigue or dropping my ClifBar and unwillingness to eat it for nutrition or what but even when I was six inches behind the rider in front of me it felt like I was not getting a lot of relief from the wind. Steve Ryan's suggestion of echelon is what I should have been doing, doh. Since the field was much smaller it seems like it strung out right away and a lot of people got dropped each lap. I was not feeling so hot so when it started sprinkling and Tom Simonson announced that the halfway point had been reached, I decided to call it a day.

P 206
S 23.6
C 77
H 178
NP 222
IF 0.90