My First Crit

"Crit" is road cyclist-speak for criterium, a circuit race around a city block or two, usually involving a pack of riders. In this case 46 racers elbow-to-elbow, wheel-to-wheel, and horrifyingly sometimes pedal to spokes---high intensity, hard skids and slamdowns on asphalt, breath-stealing sprints out of corners. See in your mind a school of fish darting 90 degrees on an instant, synchronized, and mostly maintaining their positions relative to each other. When positions are not held, bad things can happen.

My mentors had coached me to try to stay in the front to avoid accidents, avoid passing on the inside (but not always), hold your line through the curves, protect your front wheel from contact, protect yourself from the wind especially earlier in the race to preserve your strength, and don't look back even if there is a crash. You see, I would witness a criterium for the first time from inside the race itself. Even I wasn't sure this was such a good idea. But the knucklehead in me kept saying, go ahead---do it, do it.

I was in the Category 3 race for Cat 5 men, Juniors and Women. This is really a race for novices although some of the racers had raced years before, as had a few of my friends from our cycling club. I felt I represented the Gilligans and Kramers who wanted to bike race.

Chip and Michael, two local bike shop owners from our beach towns, were in this race as well. It felt great having friends in the mix around me.

I had warmed up on a trainer for about 20 minutes, getting myself nice and slathered up. Then I transitioned over to the course, a block in the Greenbrier Industrial Park of Chesapeake, Va., a .6 mile loop. We would do 15 miles---25 laps. There was a start/finish line halfway down a straightaway with a 20 knot wind seeming to blow right down it in the clockwise direction of the race. (Funny thing about a race around a four sided city block: once the race begins, there seems to be a headwind on three sides. I couldn't understand it.)

The race name was Snowball Criterium #2. Snowball #1 had been postponed from February to April 29th due to impending foul weather which actually broke bad that day. All racers gathered with their bikes at the ready in mass before the starting line about 8-10 abreast, around 6 or 7 rows deep. There actually was a clean excitement in the air of perking endorphins and hope. I was positioned front and center at the starting line. My friends' advice like a mantra repeated in my subconscious, "stay near the front and avoid trouble".

When the promoter finished addressing us, we thanked him and his club for putting on a training race of this sort by applauding as a group. I liked that. Then to my shock, he casually stepped back to the curb saying,"Okay go ahead and start." That was the official, formal start to my first crit. I thought he was joking.

When I noticed the front wheels around me rolling forward, I suddenly realized, he wasn't joking---this was the starter's gun so-to-speak. I jolted into a sprint expecting everybody to pack around me on both sides, and 25 yards out in the front, by myself, I realized I was entering the first curve alone working into one of the three sides torched by headwind. Now what? No one was near me. So I broke the first rule and looked back. I figured,"Why not?" no one's in front of me so there's nothing to collide with. My glance back produced a snapshot of the peloton stretched into single file up to my rear wheel, every rider with teeth clenched readying to devour me it seemed. I steadied into a tempo cadence around 24 mph and happily let them by me on both sides as we finished the first lap so that I could find protection from wind and for the small traces left of my dignity.

I was soon engulfed in hunched over racers astride their beloved machines, spokes shredding the air into a million slices, wind jetting over my ears. This was a real race and it was intoxicating, a streaming, constant focus on nothing but this fast moment!

There was talking between riders. Teammates to each other, some urging others to hold their line in the curves. One big rider beside me reached out to my left forearm warning me to take it easy or I would blow myself up too soon before the finish. Timely advice. I was amazed at the courtesy and manner of this group of competitors. I expected a more cutthroat atmosphere, but astoundingly got the opposite. I relaxed and started concentrating on my position and whether I liked the tempo the position gave me. When I got boxed in, the pace usually slowed more than I liked. It was then I noticed the attacks would begin on both sides of the peloton, riders streaking forward along the edges of the course. So I would dig myself out of the middle and go around. The race was separating the slower riders from the stronger riders. Laps followed laps. We now were lapping riders and since they were much slower, represented dangers for the swiftly moving larger group approaching them from behind.

Racing through the curves with other riders close at hand was an exceptional thrill. As my bike rose upright out of each curve I would climb up on the pedals for the inevitable acceleration. The rear wheel bounced as I powered the pedals into the straight.

As we passed the start/finish line each lap, a tripod-mounted stand would indicate the number of laps left. I tried not to look at it as I raced seeing it only as a mental distraction to the immediate action around me, which was plenty.

As we rounded the first 90 degree corner, about the 8th or 9th lap, the close order intensity was finally too much for the Cat 5 riders. Red cones marked the left boundary of the lane we were to remain in after cornering on this side of the course. Nearest the corner, the cones gave us a wider lane as they were placed partially into the adjacent turn lane. About 30 yards down the street, the cones abruptly went from the middle of the adjacent lane back to the single lane width. Here is where the first crash occurred.

The big guy who had warned me to slow down earlier in the race was right beside me on the left. Another rider had gotten caught beside the wider cones near the corner and suddenly found himself outside the cones where they transitioned back to single lane width. He forced his way into the side of the peloton here jamming his rear derailleur into my neighbor's front spokes. Spokes blew out, his front wheel tacoed, and he instantly slammed down on his left side skidding as riders rode around and over him. I heard it but couldn't look down or back because of the reaction shuddering through the riders close around me. The rest of us kept on with the race.
To my shock, the crashed rider was walking with his bike over his shoulder seeming to be in okay enough condition when we came back around on the next lap.

The peloton seemed elastic as the pace quickened, elongating after the corner accelerations and compacting toward the corners somewhat. About lap 15 I believe, on the approach to the last turn before the straight to the finish line I was in the front group on the outside of about six or seven riders. I noticed a rider moving off the front. I wanted to get on his wheel. This, I thought, was my chance to move up so I began moving up the ranks on the outside, first beside Chip to my right, then almost astride the boy rider whose wheel he followed. About then, Chip pulled out of the slipstream of that rider's wheel and crept up between him and me. About 3 feet separated the boy rider from me, with Chip's front wheel moving up between us now in my peripheral vision. We were very close to the sweeping righthand turn to the start/finish line.

With a sudden abruptness completely inexplicable, the boy rider jerked his bike a few feet to the left jamming his left pedal fully into Chip's front wheel and spokes. The front wheel of the perfect, immaculate Independent Fabricators bike I had carefully lifted into my minivan only this morning exploded crushing Chip to the pavement beside and then instantly behind me. The boy rider recoiled to the right from the impact, then just as abruptly, veered hard and full to the left toward me, driving me off the course into the driveway of a parking lot. I worried about my friend on the pavement behind me as he and his new bike were run over by the following riders.

When I cleared the rear wheel of the boy rider, I now looked 40 yards up the course at the rear of the peloton. I was alone in the wind again in the blink of an eye, but in hottest pursuit. Would I have the strength to catch up?

As we entered the last two laps I was somewhere in the main field again still fighting my way back into it, hiding behind other riders momentarily for rest along the way. I had spotted Chip walking with his bike earlier and now had only the race on my mind again. The peloton had stretched out again, the pace really jetting up into the last lap. As we approached that same last sweeping turn before the finish I set my sights on a rider about 20 yards out in my front, got up on the pedals and accelerated hard to my target---gaining, gaining, gaining. He looked back and saw my attack and he was now up and responding picking up speed. Every cell in my body pushed toward this one goal: to overtake this one rider before the line.

I was beside him, lunged to the line. My first crit was done. I let go, relaxed, and dropped my head down resting my neck and watched the asphalt pass below my frame. That last rider was the number ten finisher. I was eleventh of 46. Michael, who had raced a smart, safe race, finished seventh with a great ride.

This would throw a new light on my training and club rides. The only thing that would make this more fun is if other riders from our club would race with us. I am hopeful.
Dismal Dash Time Trial is next.