#111: Tour de Tuscaloosa Crit
Tour de Tuscaloosa – Cat 3
This crit features a pretty tough little climb on each lap… Memphis Velo showed up with three of
us in the Cat III race: David, Jarret, and myself. Just like last year, I flubbed my start… I think it might be a mental block of something, but I spun my pedal trying to get into it. This put me off the back down the first hill.
At the bottom of the descent there is a sort of strange left hand bend that is sort of strange the first time you take the corner. I raced this race last year, but did not get a chance to pre-ride it. I tend to be cautious through unfamiliar corners, this one being no exception… that meant that I had to chase hard after the field to the base of the hill… Jarret and I caught back and started the 2nd lap at the back of the field. Again, my cornering was bad and I had to chase…this time just barely catching on… by the time I came around the third time I was getting used to the cornering but had burnt a whole book of matches already… so I just settled in and started to collect the people falling off the field.
Eventually I caught up with David we rode together for a number of laps…
A bit later David and I were ridding and rider came by and we worked with him a bit… on the bottom of the course he got all pissed when he was told that we were lapped. I ended up drilling it up the hill and putting him behind after he got so indignant. Going through the start/finish he was yelling at the officials to give him the time elapsed… (a watch / cyclocomputer might be a good idea…), it was really a bad showing on his part..
In the end the two leaders lapped me twice and the main field lapped me just at the finish…. I was marked 29th out of about 35-36 but I know there were some issues with the scoring …so maybe I was 27th or something. No a great race but a good ride nevertheless.
Doesn’t my new bike look great? Andrea is convinced that I need to ditch my Elite cages and go with carbon… I do have that matte carbon thing going on…
I took a bunch of photos of the Masters 35+ and Womens/Juniors race. Andrea took a couple of Cat4 and a bunch of Cat3 photos. I will post them up in the near future (after getting home). The hotel’s (Ramada Inn) internet is more than slow…
Tomorrow is the road race which is more my style.
