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Northfield Criterium (MNCS) Minnesota State Criterium Championship. Tuesday, July 4th – Northfield MN. Originally I was going to go up early and race the Masters 35 plus, then do the Cat. 3 race and finish with the Pro,1,2,3 event. Didn’t happen. I ended up sleeping in and bringing Shelli and Haili with me. I was registered for the Cat 3 event and ready to go for the title. Gregg Brandt and I went to warm up and we got to talking and riding and pretty soon we came back to the course to see our group completing their second lap. We thought they were behind time wise and that we had more time. Everyone was pissed at us (Shelli, Haili, Gregg’s parents, his brother and girlfriend and I think even some people we didn’t know!) Now I’ve missed start times for TT’s and taken wrong turns on race courses and you should expect this out of me. Gregg however, there’s no excuse! Actually, he’s a young and aspiring racer who should learn by this…especially since he had a chance for a championship too as he’s riding well now. Since there was nothing either of us could do now we just had to ride as hard as we could in the Pro event. I was on my own in either event so I had no worries but now Gregg’s role would shift as he’d become a worker for Nature Valley’s stronger riders. In the end we both had fine results considering. Gregg rode strong at the front the entire race chasing down attacks and opening gaps for his teammates. I managed to almost bridge to two separate breaks but the legs and lungs fell short and I sat in no mans land for a while before it was back to the group. No soup for you! I rarely ride crits and generally avoid them like the plague. Not that I’m not a strong rider or good bike handler but I really just don’t know what I’m doing in them and don’t really care to try to figure them out at this point in my cycling career. This race was one in which I should have picked out a wheel and followed it. The two I was thinking about doing that to were Tone Coughlin and/or Scott Flanders. Both riders didn’t have any real teammates that I could see helping them and both have been around for a while. Scott is a local legend and at 47 years old or something like that has still got all the class in the world when it comes to racing his bike. Sure enough, they both finished in the money with something like a 4th and 6th place respectively. Impressive as the field was probably 70 deep and after an hour and 10 minutes of racing the average speed was a bit over 27 mph. It was a fun race and it all worked out for the best in the end.
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This site was last updated on: June 28, 2010 01:56:29 PM -0500 |