GA Crits

This past weekend Lulla and I went to Athens for the Twilight Crit and then stayed an extra day for the Roswell Crit. I have never seen more crashes in a Cat 3 crit then I did in Athens. Crashes occurred all over the course including on the uphill start-finish line. I don't know why either. It might have been because the field was so big, because the course was rather easy to race or because it was a short race with a lot on the line. Whatever it was I saw at least three crashes before the one that took me down.

It was one of those classic crashes where the guy on either side of you goes down and you know that you have no way out of it. You just accept your fate that soon you are going to be down on the ground and it's going to hurt. The thing that ticks me off is that this is my second crash this year and neither of them have been my fault. In both cases I've been the unlucky guy who just gets caught. I have my theories on what or who is causing these crashes, but I'll spare everyone the long boring explanation.

This crash took it's toll on my equipment. I split my helmet along the side behind my ear but thankfully it wasn't my head that did the same. Everything else was ok, but I developed a huge bruise on the back of my calf and inner thigh from the handlebars or maybe someone else. Needless to say the day was done for me.

I decided that I would just watch the twilight race and enjoy myself. Jed was racing at night and thought it would be great to watch him and some of the big time pros go at it. We had great seats right in the final corner and got to watch one of the biggest wrecks that I've ever seen. Unfortunately Jed went down in it and broke his handlebars in the process. The 40th guy hit the ground and then riders 41-150 hit him. There were just too many guys in the field to come after the crash for anyone to escape.

The twilight crit was some of the fastest racing I have ever seen. It got so hard and so fast that you could just feel people's legs ripping in half. In the end it wasn't the big teams that won the race but two guys who came out of nowhere, took a huge risk in the final corner and drove it to the line for the win. That's the kind of racing I like to see. The racing where sparks fly from pedals hitting the ground and guys who start their sprint before the bike can even dream of being back upright.

The Roswell Crit was fine, just stayed up and finished in the pack. I wanted to do more, but the bruise stopped me from unleashing a lot of power, even though I did string the field out once going for it with 3 laps to go.