Hello everyone,
This race report covers the second day of the Texas A&M race weekend. After the road race, my legs were so sore that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle the criterium the day afterward. For those of you who don’t know what a criterium is, it’s a type of short race held on a short track of about 1 mile long. The total race time is only 20-60 minutes, so you’re pretty much going full-blast for the entire race. The courses tend to be very technical, and bike handling skills can play an important part in a racer’s overall result.
I didn’t sleep well that night since it was my first race weekend and I was worried about how I would perform. Since Marc, my roommate and fellow D racer, would have to go early in the morning, we woke up at 5:30 AM, got breakfast and headed out for the course at around 6:30. The course was at the George Bush Library on the Texas A&M campus.
When we arrived, Sean realized that he had left the keys to the trailer at our Hotel, so I was pretty annoyed because I wouldn’t get to warm up at all before the race started. For criteriums, warming up is very important since you’ll be going very fast as soon as the race begins. When we arrived, I already saw Jay Coleman of Oklahoma University warming up. He’s probably the best rider in my category and he’s won most of the races so far, including the road race the day before.
Anyways, Josh arrived with the keys about 10 minutes before the start time and I tried to warm up the best I could. Robbie ended up having a flat tire so he spent his warm-up time fixing the flat. Luckily, Marc brought his bike in his own car so he was able to warm up for about an hour. When they called us to line up I noticed that the Rice team was there. I thought this was a little unfair, since the Rice team wasn’t there to race the day before under the brutal conditions we had. Anyways, that’s collegiate cycling for you…When we started, the pace was very fast from the beginning. I was probably only able to stay in contact with the main group for about half a lap, until I ended up in a splinter group with Marc and a handful of other riders. Unfortunately I have very poor cornering skills and was losing time at every single corner. Eventually I couldn’t hold on to Marc’s group and fell off the back.
At the end of the race I learned that Robbie stayed in contact with the front group and finished 7th or 8th, I forget, but considering that he had almost no warm-up time, the result is very impressive for Robbie. Jay Coleman of Oklahoma ended up winning, and Marc finished with his splinter group, and I finished shortly after them – a very disappointing result on my part. My main points of error were cornering and maintaining a high-level of output. I’m usually good at accellerating, but I’m not so great at sustaining power…I’ll have to improve on these aspects the next time, I guess.
The Men’s C group contained one of our riders, Matt, who stayed at the front the whole race and finished an impressive 5th. The A&M C team was very strong and they controlled the field the whole time, sweeping the podium.
When the B group lined up, we had Josh Hogan, Josh Geisinger, Daniel, Jacob, and Trent – a very strong team. Josh Hogan and Daniel were able to stay in the front group for the entire race. However, one of the MSU riders, Roy Bracey broke off the front and went solo for most of the race…that guy’s ridiculously strong. He flatted at least twice in the road race and still managed to finish second. The race pretty much had Roy off the front, with Daniel and Hogan’s group chasing behind. Geisinger was in the main peloton, and Jacob and Trent fell off the back early on, but they were eventually able to catch back on at the end. However, Roy was so strong that he lapped the main group, so the race officials decided to neutralize the main group and let only Roy, along with the chase group containing Hogan and Daniel, to finish. Thus, Roy won spectacularly, and Hogan and Daniel scored two impressive top-5 finishes.
The Men’s A group contained Michael, Joeseph, Joey, Sean, and Kyle. The A group riders are very impressive…some of them are on the verge of going professoinal. It’s pretty much top of the line. The race went as follows: a breakaway group that contained Joesph and a handful of other riders went off the front at the beginning…and stayed off the front. Most of the big teams had people in the break so the peloton did not put on a serious chase effort to catch them. Joey was having some difficulty at the beginning and abandoned early. The breakaway group was allowed so much time that they lapped the field, making it a mess for the race officials. I was confused as well so I didn’t get to see who won the race. Anyways, Joeseph scored a very good result from his breakaway effort.
As for my first weekend of bike racing, there were some good things and there were a lot of things that could have gone better. I scored a good result in the road race, but I need to work on my handling skills, as well as general race-sense such as warming up, communicating, riding with the pack, and so on and so forth. I’ve already had another weekend of racing after this, and the reports will be up soon.
After the men's A race: Michael, Joeseph, Kyle, and Sean.