OmniSYS Roadtrip (Race) - Crit

7am. Sun not up. 100% Humidity. Surreal.

Rach warms up in the dark. She looks comfortable, probably cause she's on a loaner.

Day has broken, time to race!!

Rachel leads the ladies into turn 3.

Craig racing the 45+ race, under the radar, in the St. Charles B-H kit.

Jim into turn 3 - on the attack.

Ascent and Garmin views of Jim and Craig's 45+ race. Jim attacked a bunch of times, to no avail other than personal glory.

Ascent and Garmin view of Jim's Cat 3 race. Faster race, same power numbers. Jim sat on the back without attacking, smoothing out his ride.

Great 4 days. 4 crits, 1 road race. No wrecks (only close calls.)  Good friends hanging out enjoying our sport.

Today started at 5am (ughhh) with breakfast, then loading the vehicle and heading to the crit course.  The course was a classic parking lot course, using as much of the available space as possible.  It ended up being 0.7 miles with 12 turns!  Flat and smooth on concrete with great grip, fortunately.

Craig jumped into the masters race a little over his head. Rach struggled, still looking for the comfortable top end since she broke her collar bone.  Jim battled and stayed in both of his crits.  He attacked a bunch in the master's race but couldn't get away.  Of twelve turns he clipped a pedal in 6 of them by the end of that race.  Once almost spectacularly, in turn 12 leading to the finish line.  He hopped his rear tire 6 inches in the air, fortunately "sticking" the landing without sliding out.

Jim almost wrecked in the masters race.  Going into the shared cone section coming out of turn 6, he looked back to see if he was at the of the line of riders.  He looked forward to now see the cones directely in front of him. He hit the bottom of a cone - i.e. its stand - drove his handlebars down 3 inches and launched his bottle, but kept the bike upright.  Better attention in the corners following that "near-hit" for sure.

Jim knew the Cat 3 race would be faster and with more riders (9 in the masters race, 25 in the 3 race) so he chose to sit at the back and watch the race.  He managed to clip most of the corners with his pedal that he had missed the first race, not dramatically this time, at least.  He and (B-H) got props during the 3 race as the master racer doing both races.

Lots of driving.  Lots of GPS navigation.  Thank goodness for OnStar to find the, 'er, places and races.