Just the Tip in Ricola Twilight

So I finally got a result! I was inches from getting the 3rd step on the podium but a few things went wrong that resulted in my 4th. Truth is that my 4th place is great for me and all, but it didnt get me any attention and I'm going to need to do better to get any press.

This photo clearly shows me in 3rd.... camera must me wrong :(

Wednesdays race was blisteringly hot, like the kind of hot that when you get sweat in your eyes it feels like you sprayed lemon juice in them. I would ride around to warm up then have to drink a ton of water, but so much that I would immediately have to pee. This is a big problem with crit racing because you want to make sure that you are completely hydrated for the race, but you dont want to drink to close to the time of the event because there will be no chance to pee during the race (like you can in road races) because it is just way to fast.

The race got off to a slow start. There were a bunch of delays for cars being parked on the coarse, but even once we got rolling the race was still pretty tame for a while. Everyone was really limited by the heat. It made me feel like someone just put a bunch of weights on my bike. I could still go really deep, but the results seemed to be a lot less that the perception of the effort.

I spent the race just slowly surfing around the field. Sometimes I would drift to far back and have to make a big effort to get back in a safe position, but for the most part I didn't do much during the race. The team was pretty sure that the race would end in a field sprint, so they felt good about having me sit in, but we made sure to have a couple guys working the race to make sure we didnt miss any thing.

Sadly, we still did miss the break that seemed like it was going to stay away. A couple guys worked to chase it back to a small gap and I tried to jump across to the break of 5 when the gap was brought down to about 5 seconds, but I just wasn't able to make it. Right when I got caught a group of three attacked and they were able to make it to the group.

Now the break had 8 guys in it and that totally changed the dynamic of the group and guys started sitting on in the break away, which quickly lead to the breaks demise. With 3 laps to go Neil and I hooked up in the front of the field and I told him to stick with me through the sprint.

I thought we had great position. I came out of the corner 5-6 wheel and I thought for certain the sprint was to long so that 2 of the guys would get shelled out of the sprint and then all I would have to do is come around 3-4 guys (which I'm confident could have been done) but the guys on the front managed to maintain their speed all the way to about 200 meters to go, so now I was having to sprint from 5-6 position.

I knew that I couldn't win at that point because it was just to much of a gap to close on the lead guys, but I quickly realized that I was quickly catching the 3rd rider. I swear I got the Bissel rider on the line but the camera doesn't lie and where the camera was he had a tired width on me. DAMNIT!

What I took from this race is that A) I'm going good enough to contest these NRC crits and B) that my sprint is way better than I think and I should hit out way earlier.

My previous theory on sprinting was to constantly accelerate through the finish line, but since then Ive been corrected and I guess the correct way to sprint is to go early enough that you are on the cusp of starting to slow down right when you pass the line. I will use this new information to recalculate my sprint for Somerville. Should be helpful seeing as the sprint is like 500 meters long.

Here is a link to a write up about the race. There is a pretty cool video of the sprint. http://baskingridge.patch.com/articles/video-world-class-riders-speed-through-basking-ridge-in-base-camp-international-race#c