Family Alive

I’ll just post Brian’s race report here, so you can enjoy his recap!

My race was insane. The call-ups were like a "who’s who" of criterium
racing. Kirk O’Bee, current US Pro crit national champ, Hilton Clarke,
Ivan Dominguez, Frank Pipp, Rashaan Bahati, and a bunch more. Toyota
United, Healthnet, and Bissell all had their A teams — but overall
the race was actually kind of small with less than 60 riders. I had an
OK start on the second row with the guy just in front and to the left
struggling to get into his pedals. I was in about 15th going through
the first two corners. The pace was not too, too fast but before I had
a chance to attack for the first lap prime, somebody else did and
everybody gunned it going down the hill into the third corner. I was a
little nervous not having had a chance to pre-ride the course and I
lost ground going into that corner coming out of it in probably 30th
or worse. By the time we made it around two more times I found myself
getting closer and closer to the back of the pack. Ivan Dominguez was
hanging out back there, too and I rode near him for the first few laps.

The pace was very fast and strung out everywhere except that third
corner, which was slower on some laps — but there were definitely
laps where we took that corner at over 30mph. I wouldn’t be surprised
if our average speed for the race was close to 30mph — I’ll have to
download the data when we get home to check. Even with the fast pace,
a group of 10 riders got away on about the tenth lap. Let’s just say I
wasn’t in any position to try to go with them. In fact I was hanging
on for dear life at the back of the group — which I think was
actually harder than riding near the front considering the whiplash
effect of turns 2 and 4. All the major teams were represented — but
the pace didn’t slow down right away. We went insanely fast for the
next 5 laps or so and then right when I was near the snapping point,
the field basically sat up between turn 1 and 2 and then basically
cruised the rest of the lap at 25mph — which was just enough time to
give me a chance to recover and actually move up to about a mid-pack
position going through the S/F.

I struggled some with Turn 3 as people would pass me going into the
corner and then it would be hard to carry momentum through it. When
the break finally lapped us, the pace shot up again and there were
several counter attacks so the pace would be fast on some laps and
then slower on other laps. Kristine says they were throwing out primes
on every other lap during that part of the race, but I was
concentrating hard on positioning, etc… and didn’t even notice them.
With about 20 laps to go, the pace shot up again as the big teams
started positioning for the final sprint.

But then with 12 or 13 laps to go, I was somewhere in the top 20 going
around Turn 2 and the people at the front sat up. I saw this as a
great opportunity to attack to move my position up — but when I
attacked and the front was still going slow, I found myself with a
huge gap on the downhill. Taking Turn 3 by myself was a lot more fun
than trying to negotiate it in the pack. I had a pretty good gap and
Frankie Andreu announced my name and our team going through the S/F!
At this point, Rashaan Bahati (Rock Racing) and John Murphy
(Healthnet) were also off the front chasing to "unlap" themselves. I
managed to bridge up to Rashaan after 3 or 4 laps, but he was cooked
and I stayed away one more lap before the field caught back up with
about 7 or 8 laps to go. It was awesome to be off the front of the
field with so many people from Birmingham cheering! Thanks!

The pack was strung out as it came by me, but I had enough adrenaline
so close to the finish of the race to ramp it up and hold on towards
the back of the pack for the next few laps. With 1 to go, a rider in
front of me gapped off on Turn 2 and I couldn’t go around him. I ended
up working with him to chase almost back on before the real sprint
started and then passed a bunch of people who had sat up for the
sprint. I think I may have finished somewhere in the mid to lower 30’s.