#170: Oak Ridge-day 2
In the crit there were many attacks from the start. I had a classic bad start (flubbed clip in) and was strung out during the first lap. It took a few laps, I was able to move up in the field. After several (failed) attacks by me and some successful attacks by others, there was lead group of 3 up the road and another 4 chasing behind them.
Late in the race, I tried one more time to bridge up attacking up the hill between corners 3 & 4.
With about 7 or 8 laps to go I was stuck between the field and the chase group with 3 and 4 in those groups. After a couple of laps, an old teammate of mine (from my Chattanooga days), Tom Knopp (Economy Honda) bridged to me and gave me a much needed rest. We worked to increase our gap over the pack and picked up a Fondo rider that fell out of the chase group.
During the last lap, Tom gapped and dropped us and I ended up pulling the chase group rider to the final corner. We needed to keep the speed up and the field was right behind so I had no choice.
Ended up 9th in the crit and 6th in omnium. Almost made my $84 entry fee back.
Andrea had a pretty good weekend winning the TT, 2nd in the RR, 3rd TT, and 2nd overall. She also finished out the tbra season by securing the womens 1-3 TBAR jersey. That was the reason we made the trip but it ended up being a good weekend for both of us. I needed some more results in cat 3. Not awesome results, but hard earned, so that makes a ninth feel good!
Pepper place is next weekend, then it is time to hang up the race wheels for the year. Cross is only a few months away, but it will be nice to take a couple of weeks to just ride.
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I posted up crit photos from the following: [Cat 4] [Cat 3] [Women 123]
