Boston Beantpot 2015 - Tufts Crit 4/5

After getting pretty excited for the Marblehead Circuit race featuring a pretty good-sized FitWerx team, and being very disappointed when the race was cancelled, I had to find something to do, so I quickly signed up for the race at Tufts.  Racing in my old hood seemed like it would be fun experience, and I convinced my wife to bring the whole family down to watch the race, which is a rare occurrence. 
Saturday was a snowy mess which I found out mid-rice on my CX bike (fortunately I was on knobbies), so I had to smile when I looked at the forecast for the following day, 40 deg and sunny.  I had looked at the course online, it was a short loop with the longest straight-away being along Professors Row and the Tennis courts.  I assumed the course was going clockwise, and with the predicted 5mph west wind, I thought there was a chance to get off the front with a tail wind on the straight.  On the drive down to the race, the flags on the buildings on the side of the road confirmed the direction, and it looked as if it was even a bit stronger.  This wasn't a key race for me, but rather a chance to get in a good workout, and get some elbow to elbow riding under my belt for the season.  I had a pretty good, in my inexperienced opinion, strategy of attacking from the start, and then if that didn't work, continuing to attack as often as possible.  That would serve two purposes, one would be to get in a proper workout, and second, might actually get me a win.  Since my Cat 3 upgrade was denied, I was hoping for a little vindication.  As it turns out, my strategy worked, as you shall see.
It's been nearly 5 years since I lived in Somerville, but it felt good to be home.  I wasn't a cyclist other than as a commuter on my beach cruiser back in the day, but I couldn't help but feel some sort of happiness about living on the North Shore now where the roads are in decent shape (relatively), and there are way less cars.  Being a bike racer in Somerville would be tough.  I parked at the bottom of the second turn and got a great parking spot, with a view of the race.  I was surprised to see the College A ladies come down the hill, that meant I was wrong about the direction of the race, which would turn out to be critical.
I rode up to the start, registered, and found out the field was 45 guys.  I ran into Ernest Gagnon, and introduced myself.  I've seen him around and follow his posts on how he's using cycling to battle a lifelong struggle with obesity.  If you haven't read his post on The Spandex Theory, you should, and if you see him at a race, introduce yourself.  He's at pretty much every race and we can all use all the support we can get.  I went back to the car to change and watched two races unfold, and it was pretty clear that the wind was going to play a big part, but it wasn't until I got on the course to do a practice loop how much a factor it would play.  My memory of the roads had faded a bit, and they were way steeper than I had expected.  It ended up being a pretty exciting course to race.  It was really fast on the downhill and through the left/right/left turns.  The 2nd to last turn went immediately into a steep kicker, and into another left turn onto the finishing straight, that was a pretty nasty false flat, adding to that was a significant headwind.  That explains why it looked like some of the earlier races were slow-pedaling that stretch, they weren't, it was that windy and uphill.  The road on the kicker was really beat up, and there were three cobble crosswalks on the finishing straight that were knocking people about.
All this data made me even more convinced that my strategy of attacking from the start, cross-style, was the right way to go.  I had seen a bunch of riders pulled from previous races.  There didn't seem to be much room for making up seconds on people because of the headwind on the straight, and the tight turns on the backside.  I managed to get a front row starting position, 2nd from the left.  I was pretty happy with the spot, I could race out of the blocks, get around the first corner in the top 5 and see how things worked out.  Perfect strategy, which actually played out perfectly, just not for me.  When the whistle went, I struggled to get my right shoe clipped in.  I had visions of my first Gloucester Grand Prix, 3rd row start, where failure to clip in meant lantern rouging the hole.  I managed to get clipped in and sprinted to the corner and came around it in about 15th place.  The steep downhill didn't make for much room to pass, I managed to get around one guy, and two more after going through the second corner, but the race was already strung out and the two GLV guys at the front had at least a bike length on the 3rd place rider.  I haven't raced many crits, and none like this one.  This race was so much like a cross race that it was eerie.  I don't think I ever saw a "group" of riders.  It was always strung out.  I managed to get into a chase group of 10 or so guys, and worked my way near the front.  Everyone was going hard up the kicker, and into the straight, and because the wind was so strong, if you lost the wheel in front of you, you were lost.  It meant that you had to be very careful who you were behind, because if they lost the wheel, you did too.  Which is precisely what happened about 5 laps in when another two guys got a gap on the chasers.  My kids were just before the first corner, calling out time splits, and the leaders were already 25 secs up.  No doubt because they were cornering at full speed.  This race was very suspect to getting stuck behind a rider who couldn't corner fast and losing the wheel, and then never being able to close it.  Again, if you were behind that rider, you were in trouble.   I got to the front of my group of chasers and tried to bridge to the two guys that had gotten a gap.  I didn't want to race for 5th, and I thought I could close it.  I spent 3 laps at the front trying to close, and managed to get them close, and flicked the elbow to get people to pull through and help, but no one did.  As I slid to the back of our group of 7, I watched the two guys ride away with sadness (me, not them).
What I hadn't noticed during my cross-eyed closing excursion, was that our group was at about 7, and I couldn't see anyone else behind us.  I had noticed one of my buddies, Chad from Blue Hills, on the side of the finish line and had thought he had a mechanical.  A couple of laps later, I saw Jon, also from Blue Hills, who is a very strong (and has better points than me) cat 4 rider, on the side of the road.  I would later find out that of the 44 starters, only 9 finished.  Everyone else was pulled.  It was that kind of race.  Looking back, when I saw them in the 3rd row at the start, I hadn't realized that they were in trouble from the get go.
The first time I looked at the lap cards, there were 12 laps to go.  I don't remember hearing any bells for primes, but we were so far behind the leaders, 40s at one point according to my kids, still calling out the gaps.  Were they rubbing it in?  I tried to smile to them.  They were right by the first turn, so the painful false flat and kicker made way to getting ready for the first turn, so I don't think they saw the suffering going on.  From that point on, I was working with the group, but we didn't seem to make a lot of progress.  I think it was a mixed group in terms of strength, some guys could draft and keep pace, but weren't strong enough to pull.  When I was at the front, I would try to drop the weaker ones on the kicker and straight.  The guy that ended up getting 5th was strong and savvy.  He made an attempt to bridge, which I went with, but we never really dropped everyone.  I think he rode smarter for 5th than I did, conserving energy earlier on, but I was more concerned about trying to catch the 3/4 placed riders.  With 5 laps to go, I was sitting 3rd wheel in our group, resting and plotting the finish.  The guy at the front from Blue Hills seemed happy to be at the front, and was still pushing the pace on the kicker.  My plan was to sit on wheels, up the hill, up the false flat, and take my chances in a sprint.  As we approached the kicker, I was right on the wheel of 2nd.  As we rounded the corner, the BHCC rider attacked it hard and got a small gap, I saw this, but was poorly placed, and had to come around the outside of 2nd to try and keep up.  Meanwhile, the guy in 4th took an insider route and came through at speed and bridged to the BHCC guy's wheel.  As I watched them pull away, I started my sprint just to try and get on their wheels.  With the headwind, we were still a long way from the line.  I couldn't bridge the gap, but sprinted in for 7th.  Kudos to the BHCC rider for taking 3 laps on the front and still being able to attack.  I paid the power price for some earlier efforts trying to bridge to the 2nd group.  The 4th wheel who came around the inside took the line in our group sprint.  In the final results, it looks like GLV did a great job off the front from the start of the race, winning by 30s.  I feel like I should have been in that group, it was a winning strategy on the day. The second group lost a guy and he got the same time as our group with a 4th.  I was really a second or two behind 5th and 6th, but the kind USAC judges gave me the same time. 
I was absolutely shelled at the end, so I achieved my one goal of getting a good workout.  My power profile read like a normal crit, bull horn ends of the power spectrum.  I spent 9:18 at 435+ watts, well above my V02 max.  My power output looked very similar to the Exeter Masters 1-4 crit I raced, but somehow it felt way way harder.  At Exeter, it was the same time at neuromuscular, but 2 less minutes at Anaerobic, and 1 less minute at VO2 max, and that must have been the difference in how tired I felt.  It was great to have the kids out to watch me race.  I smiled at them in every corner, and enjoyed the time gaps, even when the next morning my 7yr old son asked me "Dad, when I was calling out the time, and it was 30 seconds, why didn't you just try harder?".  Wait til he starts racing.