5/5/00
I didn't ride my bike into lab today. I thought I'd rest before the big race on Sunday. The plan is to do some light mileage on flat roads tomorrow, and to get out to the race nice and early Sunday morning.
Yesterday's Seward Park race was good. The weather was weird. Very windy, and sporadically rainy, but not too bad. It would sprinkle for a while, and then let up, and then rain hard for a few seconds, and then stop. All the while, the wind would alternately blow hard and then get calm.
The weather looked pretty good out the window, so I only wore my bib shorts and short sleeve jersey. I probably should have worn more clothing, but it was fine during the race. It was cold on the ride back home, though.
The race went clockwise, which meant that the climb was the shallow, longer way around. I always felt I went slower this way, although I have always performed better going in this direction. The turnout was pretty good, especially for the weather. Luckily, it stayed dry during the race.
For the 5:30pm race, our team riders included me, Don Perry, John Maestas, Dave O'Hern, Laura Moen, Laurence, Deborah Preitkis, another Dave, another guy I don't know the name of, another girl I don't know the name of, and another guy I don't know the name of.
On the way back from the race, Don said the race was fairly fast. I managed to stay with the pack for the whole race. There was a guy warming up for the next race that kept pushing me from behind for about 3 laps, but it was more distracting than helpful. I think the hard rides I did last weekend really helped.
I still need to figure out the correct gearing for coming up the hill at the best speed - a too high gear feels easy while pedaling standing up, but doesn't make the bike go fast, and a too low gear hurts while trying to stand and pedal, and is difficult to spin fast sitting down...
I was able to make on move to the front of the pack with two laps to go, but I started my move to late, so by the time I got to the front, we were at the beginning of the hill, so I couldn't try to go off the front at that point. Now, I know if I want to try something similar while going in the same direction, I'll have to try making my move earlier on the course.
On the last lap, I was somewhere near the back of the middle of the pack. Unfortunately, there was a crash on the sides of the final climb, when some lapped traffic got in the way of the people sprinting for the finish. During the whole race, there were some people that were riding recklessly, diving for tiny opening and such. Predictably, this lead to a crash. It sucked because some innocent people were involved, but no one was hurt. I managed to take advantage of the crash to finish in front of Don Perry, who wasn't interested in finishing fast after the crash.
The team got the first place finish for John Maestas, getting him back into first place for the points race. We managed to also win one of the primes, and would have one both, maybe, if Dave (the non-O'Hern one) hadn't chased him down. I don't think he'll be doing that again.