There was a field of 35 or so riders. Only the riders that finished are in the official results, so I don't know how many riders there were precisely. The riders were category 3 and 4 women. I was a bit nervous about that, since I am category 4. I got in a good position at the start line and I was in the front of the pack for the first couple of laps. There were a lot of really inexperienced girls out and some of them were pulled from the race within 3-5 minutes. Once you are lapped you are pulled and receive a dnf. Not that it matters, you are either 1st - 3rd and get money or 1st - 5th in your category and get points for your category, otherwise the rest of the placing don't really matter except for your pride I guess.

After a few laps, there was a crash into the first corner. We were going some pretty high speeds, maybe high 40s and I think the girl was too inexperienced and couldn't take the corner. It was a difficult corner to take at high speed and I should have practiced it a bit. I was fine, but I rated my cornering as average because of this corner. I was in front of the crash and that crash separated the pack somewhat. I stayed in the peleton and same corner, next lap, another crash. This time one girl crashed and took another girl down with her. Another girl and I were right behind the crash. We had to brake, slow, and maneouver around them. By the time we did, the peleton had taken off. The girl in front of me was able to work hard and get back up to the peleton, but I wasn't able to get here wheel and couldn't quite catch on.

So now, we have the peleton of about 10 riders, 1 girl off of the front in the lead, me chasing, and a smaller peleton behind me, as well as some girls pulled from the race. I continued chasing and the smaller peleton behind me got lapped and pulled. Two girls from the front peleton fell off and we worked together chasing. Unfortunately that's what we did for our entire race. At 19 minutes, the lead rider, who was half a lap ahead of the peleton almost caught the three of us. So they pulled us and that was the end of my race.

The final results are posted and only 9 women finished the race. So between me and the other two girls that were pulled at the same time we would have been 10-12th. Everyone who dnfs receives no placing. Also it doesn't say in the results what category the riders were. I know some of the categories of the riders and upon further investigation it looks like 5/9 riders were category 3 and 4/9 riders were category 4. Since I don't know the category or names of the riders that got pulled with me, I was either 5-7 category 4 assuming the other two who got pulled with me were also category 4. Is that confusing enough?

I was happy to have made it further than a lot of girls, but I was a bit sad to have the dnf. Also it frustrated me somewhat because I was only lapped by one rider, not the entire pack who was half a lap behind me, or I was half a lap behind them depending on how you look at it. Also a lot of the riders in the peleton and the girl who lapped me is in category 3.



My warm up should include higher speeds around the actual circuit to get a feel for the cornering. Unfortunately that is somewhat difficult to do because they were setting up the fences and the hay before my race, so there were obstacles in the way.

Rode around the streets for a bit, then came back to watch the Cat 4/5 men race. Rode back to Colin's place, left our bike there, then back to watch the rest of the races.

One cool thing that happened to me is that my team's coach noticed me. Our team has hired a really good coach who has coached national teams to victory, etc. and he has a training ride on Saturdays for the elite racers and some others by invitation. After he saw me race, he gave me a few pointers, i.e. that I should be riding in the drops more as opposed to the hoods, that my seat needs to be tilted up slightly and that I need a bike fitting. Then he told me to come out to the training starting in September. Awesome. He also told my friend Kristine to come out. She's a good rider. She's done Kona and came 3rd/4th (depending on which judge you talk to) in the race.


More riding. More racing. More hill riding. My race season really starts next year, so that was an interesting prologue, but I've got a lot more training to do over the winter/off-season.


Overall, I would have to say this race was not well organized for the novice women. The pre-race and post-race activities were and it was a fun event, but I think they should not have put cat 3 and 4 together or should not have pulled riders that were only lapped by the lead and not the peleton.

Well once that was done, the post race party was great. There was a lot of food for racers and free red bull. Lots of spectors cheered me on and congratulated me, even though I dnfed. Beer and appies at the Yaletown brew pub later in the evening.