Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Most irritating Tuesday night criterium ever

So as the title reads this race was rather annoying. A small break of three formed up front. Shortly later four more of us went up. Using advanced addition you can realize that the break now had seven guys. We worked well for a while until Ron L. decided to ride like a goofball and attack everyone. So I chased him down and then Trent and I watched him while the other four went ahead, including a teammate of each of the three of us. After a while Trent and I decided to collectively work to still try to lap the field. Ron sat on us, then after a while, like a goof attacked us. At this point Trent said the hell with this and sat up. Ron, meanwhile, had vastly overestimated his ability and found himself in no man's land for the rest of the race. Somehow he thought he would solo lap the field. I guess he was looking up to me as his hero? Thanks Ron, thanks I appreciate the love. Anyways I continued on behind him with my 3 hours a week training form and kept about the same distance behind him for a while until with two to go the field caught me. However by this point I had a teammate who had lapped the field with the front four, so I did what I could in my fatigued state to help him out. With about 3/4's of a lap to go I couldn't do anymore and sat up. At about a 1/2 lap to go bam!!! there was a crash, my teammate went down. Fingers immediately began pointing at another teammate of mine, Mike Norton. After the race there was a lot of yelling and arguing. Trent was saying "Mike you're pathetic." and I was saying "Trent, offer constructive criticism". I didn't see the crash close up so I cannot judge. However outside of who actually caused it I did notice some things: First off, only four riders lapped the field, yet everyone was going for the field sprint, and even when I was trying to lead out I had guys a lap down that were coming up and fighting me for position. If four riders lap at a Tuesday night race where only the winner recieves a "prize", the prize being a beer or soda then only the four riders that lapped and their teammates should be up there contesting. Their teammates can help out in the leadout. However I did notice several riders who had no team interest up there going for what was in effect 6th place (Ron was still ahead). This makes it dangerous for everyone. Also please take a larger view of what may have caused the crash and not just point fingers at one person. If one person did cause the crash then constructively tell him what he did wrong. Also yell at the person who obviously deserved to be yelled at ... Ron! I think Trent wasted a lot of energy yelling at Mike when he should have yelled at Ron. Just kidding Ron. Anyhow two more Tuesday races to go, hopefully they will be raced hard and there will be no further controversy and crashes this season.

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