Folsom Classic Early Crit

"This weather has been fantastic!  I don't think I've ever been this fit this early in the season!"

"I have a wonderful tan!"

"I am so strong, there's no way anyone is as fit as I am!"

"I'll probably win this race!"

If you found yourself thinking or saying such things, chances are you are not alone.  In fact, I'm pretty sure over half of every field was talking themselves up for yesterday's Folsom Classic Early Crit.  Who knew that other people might also benefit from sunny weather and 60 degrees through December and January?!

Well, it certainly showed as even our Elite 4 race was blazin' fast.  I was pretty excited for this race, more than usual for a crit.  This is due in part to the aforementioned misleading euphoria, and the very disappointing first race from last week.  In truth, it didn't disappoint.  The race was fast, attacks came often.  I made it into at least one short break and was able to mix it up trying for primes.

There was the usual banter from guys acting totally blown away that there may be danger involved in a bike race.  This complaining was utterly eclipsed by the dude who appointed himself crit coach, and kept telling everyone how to ride their bikes.

All in all it was a fun early race and my finish was typical for me in a crit, but I feel I was able to shake the legs out a little more for the upcoming monster that is Cantua.  Should be fun.

Oh, I also decided to make a day of the races and stayed for several races including the P1/2 so I could heckle Rand Miller of counterattackingreality.com.  I've been reading his blog for a few months and wanted to see him in action.  He didn't disappoint.  I hope my heckling was sufficient for his tastes.  He won the award for most aggressive rider, which clearly started with this stretching.  Just look at how enthralled his teammate is:


At one point Rand got real serious and threw his gaudy pink sunglasses to the side of the road, ostensibly so he could more effectively race face everyone.  I dutifully snagged these for him like a pathetic groupie, but failed to request one of his trademark clean bottles.  The race was fun, and though there were several breaks, it ended up in a (small) group sprint.

Here's some video of the finish that I poorly shot with my R2-D2:

Knight's Ferry

First race of the season.  Slept in, drove out with Brasel, beautiful weather.  The field was a little too small, but that just meant no obsessing over points.  It was shaping up to be a perfect first race of the season.  Brasel did a ton of work on the front and ended up with a 6th place finish.  I would have been happy to follow his promised lead out, but I flatted about a third of the way through.  I threw some CO2 in the front tire and tried to chase back on, but I was suffering a slow leak.  Pretty disappointing :(

Hopefully I was able to get my "mechanicals" out of the way.  I wanted to be more upset, but honestly I did 17 races last year without incident, so I can't complain.  Quite a few people were getting flats and at least mine didn't lead to a crash.  Plus, I'll get to work out my aggression next Saturday at the Folsom Crit.