Monday, May 6, 2013

Grattan & Goshen

I haven't raced as much this spring as I would like due to a variety of issues (one of which includes driving to races on the wrong day), but I finally got my road season started last week. I was in Indiana and Michigan visiting family the last week and managed to get in one weekday training race and a crit.

Last Wednesday was the first Grattan race of the season. As the name would suggest, the Grattan race series is a weekly race that is held at Grattan raceway in Michigan. It's an AWESOME course. Fast, flowy, and a few small hills. I was on the fence about lining up for the A or B race (you're supposed to automatically race the B race if you've never raced Grattan before, but I thought I could get around that if I wanted to). After seeing some really fast pros registering for the A race, I chickened out and did the B race.

The race started out at a moderate tempo and I got in a breakaway about 5 laps in. There were 7 of us who got away, but three riders eventually fell off our pace. With about 5 laps to go it was obvious the break was going to stick, but as I was pulling off the front of the group one guy attacked and opened up a gap. I didn't notice it soon enough and he quickly got a few seconds on us. He managed to time trial the rest of the race for the win. By the last lap, we knew we would be fighting for 3rd. The Bissell club guy attacked half-way through the lap in a corner, but the other guy I was with closed down the gap. I rode his wheel into the finish straight and came around him with about 25 meters to go for a 2nd place finish.

The "I Love Goshen Crit" was part of Goshen's monthly Friday Friday events and was held Friday and Saturday. This was the first 3/4 race I had ever done, and the first crit I had ever done with a 180 degree turn in it. There were 34 guys in our field, including two Bissell-ABG-Giant guys. The race started out fast and I got stuck behind a guy who didn't clip in very fast. This led to me hitting the 180 degree corner in 20-25th place. From there, I was playing catch-up for the next 5 laps. About 6 or 7 laps in, there was a crash in the 180 degree corner that took out three or four guys in front of me. I didn't go down, but had to slow down enough that 12 guys in front of the crash got a big gap.

Within half a lap, one guy caught up to me and we started working together. For the remaining 20 laps of the race, we worked together trading pulls. Another guy fell off the pace of the front group and joined us with about 10 laps to go. Out of our chase group of three I took 2nd place in the sprint, putting me in 13th overall.

It was a fun but frustrating race. My legs felt tired most of the race and the crash pretty much eliminated any hopes I had of a good finish. Still, I felt positive about the results for my first cat 3 race. It was also a ton of fun watching my cousins, Peter and Marten, racing in the 1/2/3 race even though neither of their races went as well as they would have hoped. Less than two weeks from now is the Salina crit and RR, so it will be fun to get some more racing in soon!

Stuck between the break and the chasing field nearly the entire race.

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