Today we also did a real live crit. I didn't really know what to expect as there was a 70 person field, with 3 saxo bank riders and Michael Rasmussen was making his return to cycling. The first 20 minutes were crazy hard as the riders couldn't carry speed through corners to save their life so I would be doing a full out sprint out of every turn just to stay on the wheel. Eventually a break of 12 went up the road and our team (of only 3 riders) completely missed it. But with so few guys we were hardly in a position to bring it back. Then we rode slow for a while when the rain started. The peleton was going embarrassingly slow through the turns, at least by US crit standards. One rider from another team even told one of my team mates to tell me to slow down in the corners. And I thought I was taking it easy. Anyway, I kept getting more and more frustrated by their lack of pace so with 3 laps to go I followed an attack by a Vacansoleil rider. It turns out we got a gap on the peleton with a Capinordic guy on our wheel. They went super slow through the turn at the bottom of the little hill and then sprinted up the whole way and dropped me a little bit. But I got back at the next corner because they braked and I didn't. I knew that I couldn't let them to that again so I made sure to pass them on the short downhill and took the two corners before the hill at a fast, but still pretty safe speed. I put about 5 seconds into them right there and didn't get caught before the top. This was with 2 laps to go. Then I just kept riding, keeping my speed up through the turns and ended up finishing the race 7 seconds in front of the peleton.
These guys don't have a hope racing crits in the US since they corner that slow. I don't think I should be able to ride away from the field with 2 laps to go, but I'll take it. Even if it was just for 13th place.
I'll post some pictures if I find them.
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