D'Boise

D'Boise crit (Boise Wells Fargo Twilight Criterium) actually happened. Gastown happened for some, but not for me. I spent 9 hours in my car driving to & from Vancouver in sh*t traffic & did not make the start. What the hell is with Canada traffic? Where were the Royal Mounted PoPo's when I needed them to part the red maple leaf sea of congestion? Oh well. Not all too upset about that one. I had a lot of "me time" in the rally car & I stayed dry & kept my skin. I read race reports on both the men's & women's fields. Pretty much 90% of the fields went down. My arm is still bruised from that crazy girl wailing in to my elbow at Tour De White Rock.

So, next race was the Boise Crit. It was the coolest Boise crit I have done in the 3 years I have participated in the race. Started at 90 degrees or so. I had a fun race. There was lots of action in the field. The local girls from Tamarack & Bob's Cycles were in cahoots with Kristin Armstrong, another Boise local, who rides for Lipton, but had no teammates in the race. They all did not want LVG to win from Team Cheerwine.

Sarah from Bob's was active early on. I was on her wheel a couple times when she attacked. Early on there were a few primes. When they got up to $35, I was in good position & went for it & got it! Then, after that prime, a break formed up the road & no one was chasing, since the Bob's & Tamarak girls were not going to chase down their teammates or Kristin. I worked to bring back the break. Eventually another break formed & this time it stuck. Liz & I were frustrated that GH girls, a local Seattle team, were not working to bring back the break. If we had all worked together right away, the group could have come back together. Well, up in the break, Jen Halladay attacked the break & Kristin let her go & LVG hesitated & did not chase. Jen eventually lapped the main field! She is a fast lady. In the final 4 laps, I was sitting 3rd wheel. I kept expecting someone from the field to attack & string it out, but no one did. Finally, at 1 lap to go at the line, I attacked hard. The huge crowd was screaming - it was cool. I took the corners as fast as I could. Down the long back stretch just before the 3rd corner, I started to feel a bit tired. 1K is a pretty long ways to hold a gap. One girl came around me just before corner 3 & I was working to get on her wheel when a girl came flying by on the outside pretty much almost right into me to chop me off. I had to cram on the breaks to avoid a collision. Later, Miller said I could have just given her a little flick to get her off. Well, after losing my momentum & the big effort I had put in, I did not have much left for the sprint, but Liz was in good position. I ended up 19th & Liz was 10th. The prize pay out for the women was 1/10th of the men's & Liz got $35 for 10th & I had my $35 prime. It was a fun race, but we had been expecting to bring home a little bit more bacon.

Here's a pic from the Men's race for visual pleasure.