Madera Stage Race Crit

Madera Stage Race: Criterium (Stage 1)
W 1,2
Teammates: Maura Kinsella
Place: Lauren – 1/34, Maura – 16/34

This is your basic, four-corner crit, true American style... about five lanes wide. There is nowhere to hide on this course. The winds have you completely at their mercy and, of course, they were gaining speed for the two hours leading up to hour crit. Somehow our warm up time flew by and I only got about 15 minutes of turning the legs over. We lined up in the pit to watch the 4s and 35+ women finish up. By this point we know that there is a pretty strong cross (slightly head) wind on the finish straight, tailwind on the second stretch, massive cross-head wind on the third side and a straight on head wind on the final bit over the railroad tracks.

Finally we are allowed to line up and are given our pre-race instructions. There would be two primes worth 5 seconds each and 20-10-5 bonus seconds for first through third places at the finish. The plan was for me to take both primes and the win with Maura’s lead-outs and hope that I could stay close enough in the time trial to make those worthwhile for a podium spot overall. Off we went.

As usual, people were pretty conservative before the time trial. There were a few attacks but nothing committed. I stayed at the front and tried to keep Maura in close distance. The bell rang for the first prime and right off the line a Touchstone rider attacked. I followed in the chase, staying out of the wind. When we hit the headwind side everyone slowed down and I ended up on the front through the last corner. Not ideal but I sprinted and took the 5 seconds.

We rolled around for the rest of the race, with a couple of attacks. At one point we got overtaken by a group of threes who had broken away from their peloton, which had started behind us. That caused all sorts of chaos and ended up causing a crash on the head wind side, which both Maura and I narrowly avoided.

We came around and saw 5 to go and still hadn’t heard the last prime bell. With three to go the announcement came over. Perfect. No one wants to sprint three laps before the real sprint. I took this one seated, trying to put out as little energy as possible. The one lap to go bell rang and some teams tried to start a lead out. There wasn’t much organization so it got a little messy on the third and fourth lengths. I came out of the last corner on the inside and farther back than I wanted. I began sprinting out the ride side of the group maybe 10 meters after the turn and held it to the line. This was kind of like a fun points race at the track. I enjoyed myself. ~Lauren