Today was the Colorado State Criterium Championships. Some riders have geared their whole season around this one race. Some treat is as just another race. I'm more of the latter. I have good fitness, but not good form. In other words, I'm in good shape, but fatigued from full-strength training and racing and not tapered or rested for the weekend races. As such, I suffered terribly. I also knew what I was in for, so I built a make-shift camera mount and filmed the race. I started at the very back of this extremely tight and twisty course and that was a very, very bad decision. I could barely move up a few spots for the first half of the race, and the second half? Well, I got dropped, so I worked with a few others in a group until getting caught on the very last lap, 1/2 mile from the finish.
Here is the video I took of the race:
CO State Crit. Champs - P12
Higher quality youtube video here: CO State P12 Criterium Championships
I will post a longer video with 5 minutes of the start, then the middle section when I got dropped for your viewing enjoyment on youtube.
I only posted the crucial moment in the race for me when I got dropped. This footage is about 35 minutes into the 75 minute race. At minute two on the video, you can see that I am behind a rider and not paying attention. The pace ramps up, he loses the wheel he's on (badly), I'm not paying attention and all of a sudden, the pack is up the road. I pull around him, sprint up to the next group that got dropped. We all work together, but it's too late. We hold the gap on the main field for the next 15 minutes or so, but can't pull it back and it's over. The race can change just that quickly if you aren't paying attention.
This is a very good illustration why you should never stay at the back of the pack in a crit. Unfortunately for me, it takes a few laps to get comfortable with the course, so I usually start at the back, then when I'm ready, I'll move up. Today, when I was ready, the pack was up the road. Not good.
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