This is a short follow up to the Pre Race Report:
-Was only dropped off the back of the M1/2/3 field. Took the free “get lapped and keep racing” lap, and got dropped again. Shout out to everyone that tried to help me by giving helpful nudges to stay in the pack draft- wish I could have stuck it for the day, but legs didn’t have it. Still lasted longer than I normally do for a second race of the day, so I’m calling that progress!
-Crashes in both fields, dodged the one in the M3/4 field that included Mainely_Cheekbones (#RIP), good karma for the day was yelling at Doctor_Indefatigable that everyone in the crash was fine and we should keep racing. Mainely_Cheekbones took his free lap, and finished the day 10th- way to not let the crash keep a fast racer down!
-Strava says that lap catching back on from the crash, and the last lap, were the fastest ones for the day. Crash Lap was about the twenty-nine minute mark on the second to last corner, included about fifty seconds of hard work moving back up to comfortable spot. Last lap was when I finally dropped the nerves and #sentit with proper corner railing and no brakes. Picked up a lot of spots on that last lap, came into the straightaway first- right behind the twenty riders that were already on the front and formed a small gap (#RIP) Sooo just a couple steps forward in getting this bike racing thing dialed
Paid for this image by Katie Busick, because she is Very Talented and patient with my literal tongue-in-cheek attitude and one day Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and your literal brain might implode so do your backups, people! And also consider supporting Katie by buying some of her work on her website!
Tend to spend a lot of the post-race discussion talking about How The Race Played Out- the main motivation for this post is to give something more concrete for people that ask me a lot of questions after races on What Happened (looking at you, new crit teammies and Doctor_Indefatigable). The common refrain is, “Everything was going well, until the last lap!” and then WHAMMO they go from leading the field to spat out the back and very confused
Here’s a Strava Gif of my last lap. It’s not that useful, since it didn’t win the race (yay #nihilism !), but if you’re still figuring out how to do your #LastLapFastLap, I hope it enforces the following:
-Every single warm-up and beginning laps of a criterium should be spent figuring out the best lines, A through Z, including the edge of your comfort in handling and #NoBrakesNoRules routes
-Race isn’t over until it’s over
-Don’t save moving up until the last lap! Move up within at least five minutes of the race ending!
LEVELING UP MY SOCIAL MEDIA SKILLS
Bike racing is it’s own reward- if you had fun, that’s a win! Keep reading these Analysis posts if you’re like me and enjoy fiddling with the nuances of the mental and strategy part of racing
Fun things to keep in mind when #Ninigrit comes around in two weeks
*this is also a good practice write up when I start picking apart #BikeNHMS Strava Files