Keefer Madness

Wake Forest Cat5 Criterium Race Report

// September 15th, 2008 // Cycling, Personal Crap

Yesterday morning probably marked the end of the regular criterium racing for 2008 for me (save the final in the Ace Speedway series tomorrow night – hopefully where I’ll be getting my silver series trophy) and it was nice to have a short drive for it down NC Highway 98 to historic downtown Wake Forest for its inaugural downtown criterium. The Cat5 race had the first race of the day at a bright and early 8am.

The course was the simplest of criterium courses – four left turns. Diving into turn three was a decent little climb that leveled out as you came out of the fourth corner. In warmups, I could tell there were some newbs and I also recognized some “veteran” cat5ers from a week earlier out at Greensboro’s Carolina Cup, so I was pretty sure it was going to be crucial to pick the right wheels for the .6 mile loop

Very early on into the race, several picked up the pace and I latched on. At times, it was me and one other guy from Spin Cycle / CCC and then Andy Look, who may be a future Trike, in his UW-Wisconsin team kit raced a wonderful race, latched on with us and stay in the top 5 the entire remainder of the race. I never looked back and my only clues to our gap over the main field was when we came across the start/finish during laps, but I believe at our biggest gap, we were about a quarter of a lap up. We lapped several riders as the race progressed and my hope pre-race was to get some help from and swap some pulls with fellow Ace Speedway “C” racer, Stacy Miller from Inside Out Sports’ team, but he flatted and I saw him on the back straight cheering us on.

Eventually, our break got caught and with 5 laps to go, I got spit out the back, having used too much energy to keep pace with the break. I ended up coming in a respectable 7th. Andy Look finished in second place. Spin Cycle / CCC had two riders in the race and I thought they were biding time to make a move, but I don’t believe it happened. The official results are not on USA Cycling yet, but I’m pretty sure the guy’s wheel I was on ended up getting one position ahead of me across the finish.

The Wake Forest inaugural criterium also added a nice little podium setup at start/finish where the top 3 got photographed. I’m sure that they’re planning on using that for promotion of next year’s race. That was a nice little touch.

The season is wrapping up, but I’m already looking forward to more crits like this and 2009 incarnation of the Wake Forest criterium.

Overall, I think I rode a pretty good race, but wish maybe I hadn’t gone with the early attack and rather sat in with the main field till later on in the race. I would have been a lot fresher with 5 laps to go. More learning still going on and more fitness to work on in the off season. Now, I’m looking forward to Ace tomorrow night!

Wake Forest Cat5 Criterium