Monday, August 16, 2010

Albany Crit

I - like many people it seems - hate this race. But for different reasons. People are always telling me how dangerous this race is. I - as many of you know - am waaaaay too cautious to be a good bike racer. I have a low tolerance for dangerous courses. But I really don't see why everyone says this is so dangerous. To my mind, it's dangerous like every other crit in NorCal.

Bill had reminded me how "dangerous" the course was the day before, so I decided to take just one more practice lap before lining up. Predictably, when I came around to the line the field was already 3 deep. Doh!

The rest is pretty straightforward. I started near the back, I stayed near the back and I pulled off from near the back with 3 to go. I was dangling off the back of a long thin line the entire race. Specialized, Morgan Stanley and Safeway were each trying to get away, but never all 3 together, so the pace never eased off.

Laps took about 1min 15 seconds. 4x full out sprints out of every corner roughly every minute just isn't my kind of course.

So I too hate this course, but I still don't see what's so unsafe about it.

Hoping my first 2 race weekend in a long time pays off as solid training!

- Matt

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