Concord Criterium - Cat 4

I decided to forgo Bow this year in favor of trying out the Concord Crit for the first time and spending the rest of the weekend up in NH.

It was a beautiful sunny day with high humidity, which resulted in an incredibly sweaty trainer warm-up. Starvish, Colm and I discussed tactics before the race and had a look at the super-long finishing straight to figure out how we might do a lead out. John was kind enough to offer a lead out for me since he had already upgraded to Cat 3, but was still racing this weekend as a Cat 4.

The race was 20 laps around more of a circuit course than a crit, with a long, gradual uphill into a right hand turn at a rotary (which was a bottleneck on every lap), then a rolling section before a series of hard turns on a downhill, into the finishing straight, which was easily 400 meters long. Our plan was to give the leadout a try for the first prime and see how it worked, then re-evaluate. The crux of the sprint laps was getting in a good position before the hard downhill turns. We were a little farther back than we should have been, but we still cranked up the tempo to try it out. The straight was long enough that we easily slingshotted me across the line for 3rd in the prime, passing a number of riders in the straight.

For the rest of the race, I tried to stay in the top 10 wheels around the course, especially through the hard turns. There seemed to be a lot of strong, but inexperienced riders in our field and I was worried someone would slide out in the turns. Sure enough, a Green Line Velo rider rolled his tubular coming into the finishing straight during a prime lap and I had to swerve to avoid him.

There were a couple of break attempts, but it always came back together. I did my best to cover attacks without accelerating too quickly and buring the legs out for the sprint. By the last lap, I felt strong and stayed in the top few wheels through the climb and rotary. On the rolling section, everyone was vying for position and it took an all-out sprint and pack maneuvering to stay near the front. I was a little too far back coming through the turns and sprinted for 12th. I believe Colm was 14th and John was 15th.

Great fun. I wish the course was much shorter with more of the technical turns and less of the rolling straights, but I’d do it again.