Texas State Criterium Championship, Age Based

Type
Criterium
Date
Sunday, 29 May, 2016
Sanctioning
USA Cycling
$
40
/ Adults
Start Time:
12:30 PM, 2:20 PM
Length:
50 - 60 minutes
Description
PERMIT 2016-1329.

Age-based races.
 
More
Links
Fees
Class
Gender
Category Detail
Age
Start Time
Time Length
Fee
Prizes
Field Limit
MastersMen60-64, 65-69, 70+
60 - 70
8:00 AM
45
 minutes
$
40		5/$150
75
MastersWomen40+ 3/4 , 50+ , 60+
40 - 60
8:55 AM
45
 minutes
$
40		5/$150
75
MastersMen50-54, 55-59
50 - 59
9:50 AM
50
 minutes
$
40		5/$300
75
JuniorsMen10-12, 13-14
10 - 14
10:50 AM
30
 minutes
$
20		Awards
75
JuniorsWomen10-12, 13-14
10 - 14
10:50 AM
30
 minutes
$
20		Awards
75
MastersMen40-44, 45-49
40 - 49
11:30 AM
50
 minutes
$
40		8/$800
75
AdultsWomenU23, 23-29, 30-34, 35-39
18 - 39
12:30 PM
50
 minutes
$
40		7/$700
75
JuniorsMen15-16, 17-18
15 - 18
1:30 PM
40
 minutes
$
20		Awards
75
JuniorsWomen15-16, 17-18
15 - 18
1:30 PM
40
 minutes
$
20		Awards
75
AdultsMenU23, 23-29, 30-34, 35-39
18 - 39
2:20 PM
60
 minutes
$
40		14/$1200
75
MastersMen35+ 4/5
35 +
3:30 PM
45
 minutes
$
40		5/$200
75
1 comments
Write a Comment
The usual disclaimers:1. Please feel free to skip this. Races are like dreams: everyone likes to relive and describe theirs. Most are just bored by the retelling.2. I've always been a remedial crit racer. Not my strongest suit. Despite that I occasionally pull something out of my hat.This year's crit championships were in Greenville on a course which has apparently been used before (Blackland Prairie ... more Tour), but which was brand new to me. Greenville is beyond Dallas - a solid 4 hour drive from S. Austin so I had to drive up the day before. I arrived in Greenville in Saturday evening and promptly got lost in town. Oh well. Somehow I managed to stumble onto the crit course rather than my hotel so I pulled the bike out of my car to ride a couple practice laps that evening.What an unusual course: An "L" with a one really long portion and one really short portion. One-block u-turns at each end of the L. There was actually a little elevation, since both directions on the long portion of the "L" went over a railroad overpass. And a little more elevation gain in the finish sprint which was on the outside short portion of the "L".The kicker for me is that the finish sprint was towards the end of the short portion of the "L", which means that it was immediately preceded by three quick turns, including one very narrow, short block of bricks at the end of the short leg. All three turns were packed into only about 4oo meters. This is not my kind of finish.So we lined up on Sunday morning at 8 am. A small field of only about a dozen. As the masters fields get older, they continue to shrink in size, but the people that are left are self-selected as the strongest. I don't mind the strength, and I really like the smaller packs which are easier for a bonhead like me to navigate.The strength included Geriatrix' two strongest: Tom Bain and George Heagerty (both just back from Masters Nationals, where Tom did well in both the RR (5th) and the crit (7th). It also included Richard Neill, who dropped out of the sky this year: a former triathlete dentist from Ft. Worth who kicked my ass in Ft. Davis in April. Plus some of the usual suspects (Willie Allen) and Violet Crown's favorite cross-racer, Chris Thibodeaux.The race started fast with a hard Geriatrix attack on the first lap. I answered it, and so Geriatrix countered. Pretty much the whole race went this way, with Geriatrix one-two punching attacks, and it almost exclusively being left up to me to respond. It was sort of an epiphany for me: I had won last year's state championship crit and pretty much dominated the uphill sprint in that race. Over the ensuing year, I had forgotten how hard the rest of that race had been. This year was a replay of Geriatrix beating up on me and the rest of the field.There were two primes during the race and honestly, after the second one all I wanted to do was get off my bike. But I did figure out that it would be hard if not impossible to win the final sprint if I wasn't the first guy out of the last corner, something which I suspected before but hadn't confirmed.Eventually the lap cards came out. For a lap or so in there I was hung out to dry on the front but I managed to get Ted out in front. True to form Geriatrix also fully understood the importance of the getting to that last set of corners first and so George led out the sprint with a hard jump and Tom on his wheel from almost a half lap out. I got past George but found myself in a two up sprint for that set of finishing corners. Tom squeezed me out in the first of the three corners and all I could do was follow. Tom won, I was second, George was third, Willy was fourth: the exact same order as we were going into those corners. Ah well, I love first, but I'll take second this year.Cheers,zaz
Reply
0
0

We'll train in the dark if we have to.