Snelling Road Race

Race Report: Snelling Road Race
Womens 1,2
Teammates: Maura Kinsella
Place: Lauren – DNF, Maura – DNF

First road race of the season and we started in a mud pit. Literally. We started out carrying our bikes through the swamp back and forth to the road but eventually gave it up. The weather cleared up a bit for our afternoon wave but standing water remained throughout the course. Tibco brought almost their entire team, which made up a third of the preregistered women. About 45 women started for a total of 5 laps.

The neutral rollout was edgy and almost as soon as the moto took off the attacks began. Tibco had split into two “teams” and were going off the front in pairs. The field thinned out pretty quickly which left fewer places to hide. The tailwind section was very fast and was probably where most people were getting shelled. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the second lap Maura had a mechanical in this section and could not catch the group again despite her efforts.

The first three laps were all the same. Tibco attacked and kept the pace high. A few breaks formed but were caught and several times single riders got off for a few minutes. There were very few moments of real rest. On the first leg of the fourth lap the peloton kind of took a breather and then the fun really started. I was on the right side of the peloton on the edge of the road. The last thing I saw was a girl come from the middle of the pack straight out to the right. Next thing I new I was face down sliding through a big, dirty puddle (ok, really it was a pond). Luckily I escaped unbroken with some scrapes and golf ball for an elbow. The things I was probably most upset about were losing my glasses to the pond and tearing up my brand new arm warmers. Needless to say my race was over. While the day did not go quite as planned, it was good to get out racing again.