Cherry Pie

Fergus and I went up to Napa on Sunday for this race. I like technical crits for the fact that they keep you on your toes. We arrrived early enough to take care of all the essentials and get to the staging area with enough time to ensure we didn’t wind up on the back end of the 100-man field.

I had a good start and was somewhere in the front third of the group as we went into the first turn. Fergus had some trouble clipping in but made his way to the very front of the race by the third lap. He tried for a couple of primes without luck while I sat in the mid-front of the pack shaking the training ride out of my legs from the day before. I’m not sure what set it off but I saw a Roaring Mouse guy hit the curb on the backside and get launched upside-down into a tree. The next time around he was still on the ground but I later found out he just dislocated his shoulder and was up walking around.
 

About two or three laps later I heard the sound of bikes and pavement on my left and saw a mass of wheels and legs coming into my field of vision. I slowed down and partially uncliped as I thought I was going to have to bail. Bikes and riders came rolling in front of me but I avoided going down. Now I was at the very back of a staggered out field of riders. I clipped in and in about a half of a lap had made my way back up to about the 20’s again. I kind of surprised myself as to how fast I caught back up and was still trying to move up more when we went into the first hard right hand turn after the 180.

I was going fast leaning into the turn and then…Bam! My back tire blows out. Actually the tire had come unseated and the tube blew out. I’m not sure if I hit the lip of the gutter or a bot dot just so or what? Maybe I just had done a sloppy job of putting the tire on and it wasn’t seated right. It seems like if that were the case it would have popped earlier. In any case that was my race.

I watched as Fergus hold onto his spot at the front of the pack. I thought he might have a chance for a good placing. As the group moved around the course for the last lap he was third wheel. I guess he had spent too much energy through the race trying to stay in front, however. On the backside he said he started to get passed and just didn’t have any more gas. He finished near the back of the pack. Chalk that one up to learning experience.