Cyclismo Crit 4/18 Cat3 Downtown B’Ham
19th April 2009 by thompson
Mens cat3 criterium, 17 or 18 riders in the field. VeloCity, Cumberland Transit, Mellow Mushroom, BBC, Jittery Joes and a few other were represented. Jacob and I were the only Tria riders. The first laps rolled fast with Tim Heard and a Cumberland guy getting off the front for a lap. This was brought back and another small attack was covered by Jacob. As we rounded corner #2 going into #3 the field had just made the catch and was sitting up. I jumped wide and shot through the corner and opened up a gap. Cumberland Transit and Jason Donaldson of BBC bridged up. Jacob and BBC controlled the field to let the gap grow. The three of us worked well together and got over a minute by the finish. With a lap to go I attacked into the wind between corners 2 and 3 but they were on me. We came down the back side three wide across the road. I heard Donaldson rub his brakes and that was the signal to hit the gas. I went into the last corner hot and put a gap on him that he could not close. The Cumberland rider was better at the corners but was in bad position. I got up to 34 mph in the sprint, 26.4 mph average for 20.25 miles.
This is a great course, downtown! The corners are like fly paper! Thank you Mayor Langford for repaving! I hope this race is around next year.