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.

Soggy Soggy

Today is the Gastown crit up in BC. I took the day off from work to travel up there & compete. Last weekend, was the Tour De White Rock which Michele & I went up and raced. It was a bugger of a race with a super steep hill climb, crit (with a hill), & hilly RR (not rolling hills like I thought they would be - meters can be deceiving in a profile). The road race was a 10K circuit with two super steep 2K climbs. The TDW is part of the BC Superweek, so there were a lot of Canadian pro's there & all of the races were fast. With the steep hilly stuff, I was not really in contention. I thought I might do well in the crit, but my legs & stomach had a different thought. I had a great start though & was doing well railing it in the corners, but I had the wrong strategy with trying to just spin up the hill rather than going all out & dangled off the back & was finally dropped. During the RR on the last lap, a girl riding next to me in a group of 6 riders tapped the wheel in front of her & then lost control of her bike & crashed into me. With the steamroller maneuver, I kept my bike upright by keeping the legs turning over while she slammed into my elbow & hip. I have a pretty nasty bruise on my elbow where her helmet met the bone, but I can't complain too much since I did not go down. After that, I broke away from my little group on the last climb & TT'd it into the finish.

I have to mention Michele's hill climb bike that her husband built up for her to ride when we thought the average grade of the hill climb was going to be 16% (it was 16% towards the top, but the overall average was closer to 9%). The hill climb machine was a single speed with a 24 chain ring & 25 cog in the rear built on Michele's old TT frame with bull horn bars. It was sweet! But M did not ride it since it was a little too small of a gear.

So it has been warm & sunny for many days in a row, but for the past couple of days there have been rain showers at night & yesterday there were some sprinkles in the morning. Today, there is definite rain coming down. I have never done the Gastown crit, but I hear it has cobbles, a 165 degree corner, a fast downhill section & a hill to the finish. Not exactly the type of race you want to do in the rain. I am going to try & find some good rain race tires before heading up to BC & hopefully I'll be able to hang in the race.

This weekend is the Boise Wells Fargo Twilight crit & I am so excited for it! That is one of my most favorite races. Wide open, 4 corners with thousands of crazy fans screaming all the way around the course. It is like racing in a stadium with all of the downtown buildings around & the people going nuts. Last year, Kristen Armstrong rode away from the field. I'm not sure if she'll be there again this year, but no matter what it should be a great race. It is guaranteed to be dry there.