This year’s Superweek has featured a number of new courses, and I’m not sure they’ve found favor with the riders. On Sunday, the course at Olympia Fields was, well, interesting. It barely met the USCF length limit for a crit (800m ~.5 mile) and was run through a subdivision that was still under construction, including the road itself which had a lip running all around it because the final layer of asphalt hadn’t been laid. Nothing like an unfinished road and some construction debris lining the course to make you really careful you stayed upright.
In our race, the 4/5 30+, safety wasn’t an issue. There was one crash when a rider was forced over the lip and couldn’t handled it. Other than that, the biggest challenge was the wind, which was fierce coming into the finishing straight. A break got off the front and dangled there for a while. Our team didn’t have anyone in it and missed the opportunity to send someone up there. XXX had two riders in the break and their guys in the field did a great job keeping the rest of us in check. In the end, we did alright, again getting 3 of 6 guys in the money, but it was a bit disappointing missing that move.
On Monday we moved on to Richton Park. Not surprisingly, the start of the work week saw a serious reduction in the 30+ field — only 18 started. We were the only team with multiple guys in the field, and after being burned by a breakaway yesterday, we made sure no breaks got away. The trouble was, though, that we didn’t pull off a good sprint. We started the leadout on the wrong side of the road and couldn’t find a way through. I bailed on the leadout and tried freelancing up the right side, but was too far back by that point to move up much. I managed to hang on to 11th, while my teammates finished 9th and 13th. If we had a bit more practice at lead outs, etc, I think we would have done better.
Still, this week has seen some of the best results for us, the Masters consistently in the money and Joe Bippus challenging for the overall in the Cat 4s.
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