In lieu of actually writing anything up, here’s a short and sweet summary of a few races this summer…

Lafeyette Criterium

My first race, nervous as hell, but got a nice warm up on the course. Loving the new pavement I felt pretty good for a few laps. I got dropped about 16 minutes in (about eight laps) and pulled myself out after an old overweight guy on a Orbea with Zipps wouldn’t stop sucking my wheel around the course for a couple laps when were obviously down and out.

Albany Criterium

I felt a little better about my chances after having gotten an initial taste of crit racing. Since we weren’t the first race I got a mediocre warm up out on the street. The pace seemed significantly more tame than Lafeyette, even though my computer says it was about the same. Maybe because this was a four corner crit with very little rise and Lafeyette has a bitch of a hairpin going up for along rise to the finish. I sat very comfortably in the front half of the pack for at least twenty minutes before I started to hurt and lose positions. My head started to swim so I missed the lap cards altogether and didn’t even realize the bells ringing weren’t in my ears. It was over faster than I thought, and though I didn’t finish with the pack, I finished and I wasn’t last: 24th out of 27 finishers, 31 starters.

Giro di San Francisco

First race as a Mouse and I was stoked. We did some recon that Saturday and put together a pretty complicated strategy. Unfortunately that all went out the window when the race actually started. James Bellenger of TFK had a really unfortunate spill in the second or third lap (I was a few riders back and some him crash pretty hard) which put us in a six lap neutralization – heal quick James. While they were tending to James a spectator collapsed, either from a heart attack or the sight of James’ blood. That stopped the race altogether with 75 anxious 4s and 5s losing their warm up at the starting line.

We must have sat for half an hour while EMTs tended to the spectator and James. The officials gave us ten laps to go, after racing only two, of twenty-four total planned. They actually started us off kind of quick, I didn’t even know we were racing until I saw the front half of the pack pull away very quickly. I got stuck behind other confused riders still trying to clip in and the pack was already around the corner by the time I got away. I spent a few laps trying to catch back on before getting dropped back with a smaller group with similar problems. A Team CS rider and I tried briefly to get back into it together but we had already lost too much ground and were whistled off with four or five to go.

Either way it was a blast to finally ride with a team, especially a team as fun as Roaring Mouse. Thanks for all the support guys, and thanks for making the Giro, even a botched Giro, an event to be reckoned with.