Chris Hinds Criterium, Pro123

The beginning of this cycling season is very challenging for me. When I upgraded to 3 last year, criteriums didn’t feel especially challenging but road races were brutal. I only had success on the flattest road races on the calendar. The early part of 2009 includes a small amount of crits, and those are all pro123 fields with no pure cat3 field offered. That’s a big jump from racing cat4’s. The rest of the races include the hilly New England classics: Battenkill (close enough to NE), Turtle Pond, Quabbin, and Jiminy. Those races are hard for just about everyone.

Chris Hinds fell into the difficult p123 criterium category. The field wasn’t as stacked as Marblehead, but there were enough McCormacks, Keoughs, and other scary names to make the race tough for me. To makes things even more challenging, pouring rain started about 30 minutes before the start at 40°F. On the drive home my thermometer read as low as 37 and it looked like it was on the threshold of snow.

Lastly, it wouldn’t be a true early season race if I weren’t completely unprepared with my equipment. My 11-month old Cannondale six13 cracked a week ago, and I replaced it with a 2007 Scott CR1 frameset (same parts though). The CR1 didn’t come in until Thursday night, and I didn’t start swapping the parts over until Friday night, at 8 PM. It’s good advice to avoid changing any parts on your bike the night before a race, but how about building up the entire thing? I was scrambling Saturday morning making last minute tweaks. No time for a real breakfast so McDonald’s had to do.

Miraculously, it all came together and I was able to race. Not only that, I even got a good 30-minute warmup in. Ken and Tim were playing super domestique rolls and by the time we lined up I actually felt ready.

60 racers started. NEBC had 3 in the race including Jim and Landen. The pace on the first few laps was punchy as we slowed way down for many of the corners. Considering that the track was covered in water, traction was actually pretty decent. A lot of jockeying for position. I got sandwiched between riders and bumped hands with some older dude in a yellow kit going around a turn. His reaction was to swat me in the chest, real nice.

Once everyone started gaining confidence in traction things sped up and smoothened out. No more irate cyclists over the punchy pace. I stayed as near the front as I could without actually doing any real work, just hoping to make a split if one were to occur. Every few laps or so we would really string out, but the hard pace never lasted long enough for the elastic to snap. A strong headwind on the finishing straightaway really helped keep things together.

There was a nasty crash somewhere in the middle of the race on the straightaway. I don’t know what happened, but I imagine some wheels crossed due to the wind. We were packing in real tight here every lap as the pace slowed down and everyone tried to dodge the wind. I think a a Fuji rider ran into the fallen rider, went over his handlebars and broke his collarbone.

With somewhere around 10 laps to go the bunch was still together, and I found myself following a pair of McCormacks about 8-10 wheels back. An attack came on the front and gap opened between the two. I began to pull through, but stopped when I realized that my teammate Jim was in the split. I think a Kenda rider behind me was in the same situation. By the time someone in the field reacted, the split was a good 10 seconds up the road.

The pace got real hard in the last 10 laps as racers that didn’t end up in the split pushed the pace. I was at my max pretty much the entire time. The cold was really taking its toll on me. My legs felt like mush when I came out of the saddle. My feet and fingers were soaking wet and freezing cold. We were also way past the 45-50 minute crit length that I am used to.

At 4 or 5 to go another split of 6 racers or so went up the road. I was deep in my pain cave, and was somewhat oblivious as to what was happening in the race. I thought that the second split of 6 was the original split, and that it was coming back. No NEBC kits were in this group of six, and I figured that Jim must’ve fallen out. I took a hard pull up the front straightaway, but as we came to the end I could see the original split coming around onto the back straight. That was pretty crushing to my motivation but Jim was still there.

With a teammate up the road and my suffering at an all-time high, I settled in to ride it out the remaining few laps to the finish. I floated about 15 wheels back, and realized that I was at the very back of the race. I had no idea that anyone had been dropped, let alone half the field. There wasn’t much of a sprint in the main field (or what was left of it) with all 10 paying spots up the road, and I rolled across the finish mid-pack. With so many people dropping out that put me in 22/60 for the day. I went straight back to my car and shivered uncontrollably for a good half hour. Brutal race.

No power data to share. I'm using my race wheels for real races this year instead of that anchor I call a powertap.