Goals:
Proper warmup: check
Minimal breaking: check
Stay with main pack: check


At my first crit I did not realize how FAST right off the bat these women were going to go, and basically had a really lame warmup, but this time I came prepared with a good warmup and felt ready to go. It really hit home how important this is.

This was only my second crit. The first one I did was brutal with a 90 degree turn coming off a short steep downhill, lets just say I was breaking EVERYWHERE. So my goal for this was just to lay off the breaks and trust my bike. This is where the crit addiction happens, flying around those corners is crazy fun. I really let go of my wanting to break and saw the results of being able to not only keep up, but not killing myself coming out of the turns to catch up.

Staying with the main pack is a combo of the above two, having a good warmup to go right from the start, and the not braking. I also found that if you can just suck it up for a 10 minutes or so, it will settle down "a bit". The main pack of women still averaged 22 miles an hour for 30 minutes, and we lapped some of the ladies behind us. The two lead women, both Cat 1's lapped us, the main pack at about 20 minutes into the race, I would love to know how fast they were going!

Took my turns pulling and being pulled, and for the main pack it came down to a sprint (paid out 8 places), which leads me to what I could do differently.

Overall though this was an awesome experience, one I hope to repeat several more times this year. Finished 7th out of 12 women.

Better sprint. I just need to work on this, period. Gain more confidence, endurance and stability with a standing sprint, although I did pass one girl at the end.

light pedal for 10 minutes.


My weight and sprinting capabilites.


This was an awesome venue, with almost 300 participents.
$8500 offered in prize money.