Linsey’s day to sprint, my day to ride a Team Pursuit??? and then do a 40 Lap Points race.
Yesterday, during my sprint day one of my newer track friends from Seattle, connected me with about some guys who needed a 4th rider to make their 4 man team complete. The age range for the teams in this class was 55 through 64 but they can add one and only one older rider to complete the team. I agreed even though I wasn’t planning to ride another race and had no aero/TT bars with me to ride the event. As a team, we finally connected shortly before we had to race, sound like a Team Sprint event situation from earlier in the week? Yup.
As a four some, we got to ride together about 15 minutes, certainly not ideal. During our ride I realized one rider was significantly stronger, not me. 2 others were strong, not much more than me. One guy was a bit unsteady, tough to stay behind and save energy. We decided I would start from the gate, I am happy with gate starts, others hate them. I don’t understand it, but that’s the way of it. We were first team out. I rode hard but not hard enough to gap the team, which is good, rolled off one lap later and got back on the back end. Second guy did 2 laps, 3rd guy did one, 4th guy did one, I did half a lap and rolled off yelling 3 left. This event needs 4 racers to start but only 3 to finish so I was done for my effort….until, a crash. The last place guy clipped the rear wheel of the guy ahed of him in turn 2 and went down. That means I was now back in the race, time was on my finish. The photographer in turn 3 was yelling at me to get back in it, ha! I accelerated for a few laps but then saw the other 2 roll off. We were done, DNF’d. So sorry for the team mate who had to go to the hospital. Not sure how he ended up. I was done for the pursuit end of my week, points race to do at about 4:00 later today.
Linsey’s 200 was great, about a second faster than mine, great Linsey. Next was matches and she won both which got her into the top 4 rides, riding for the Bronze medal position on Sunday/tomorrow.
I just stayed at the track all day away only for grabbing some food with Josh at the local Subway and then back again. A few warm up laps prior to the afternoon session start and my points race, 1st race of the afternoon.
19 of us in the Points race, 40 laps. points awarded to the top 4 riders across the line every 10 laps with points doubled for the last sprint. Half start on the rail, half at the blue band again. Josh pushing me off the blue this time. I knew the riders I wanted to get behind before the race started. Good way to save energy. The first sprint happened, I was not even close to getting points. 3-4 laps later, a few went off the front and me and others didn’t respond, wrong. We got gapped but 2 others and me did half lap pulls to claw back into the pack before the next sprint, me pulling us back in to the group. I felt like I was staying close to the front, after watching, I wasn’t really. No points for 2nd and 3rd sprint. Dove under my New Zealand buddy going through turn 2, maybe a bit illegal on the blue apron for a few meters. Another guy, one who helped get me back in the race almost crashed me going through turn 2 when I dove under him, whew! I got behind a few of my choices, eventually behind a Boulder guy and stuck to him a few laps, just barely. He rolled off with about 2 laps to go and all up to me. All out now, hard and fast, passing a few others, even one of the guys I’ve raced against a lot with him always doing better, eventually crossing the finish 4th, gaining 2 points which was enough to give me 7th overall. Most exciting and rewarding result of my week.
Roll, off, hop on the rollers and ride a while to cool down and burn off some of the excitement. Eventually packed stuff up, my plan to start my drive back had changed to leave tomorrow, Sunday, instead of Monday. Andy was the driver home tonight, Linsey with us with a stop at the local In & Out Burger for him and a local liquor store for me and a six of beer to close out the week.