Superweek by Holly

Green Lake Crit: The course was for this race was a lot of fun. Seven very smooth, wide corners, a 180, a short hill, looked pretty good for breakaways. I raced trying to get in a breakaway, and noticed that Cheerwine seemed to want to get Rachael O'Connell a win in thanks for all the work she'd done for Kelly Benjamin. I was in a few moves with her that seemed promising, but even the well-represented breaks were chased down by the solo riders who couldn't manage to bridge. At two to go I got ready for the field sprint, but was a bit spooked when riders got aggressive and pulled some sketchy moves. I was in less-than-stellar position and finished 17th.

Chris Hart Crit: Another technical course with a slight hill and a 120 degree corner. Although I never have considered myself a very good technical rider, I loved this course!! My aim was to be as conservative as possible until 20 laps to go (just past halfway). Right around 20 to go, a girl from South Bay Wheelmen went off the front solo. The field seemed happy to let it roll away, but when I saw Sky Lee Armstrong (a rider from Australia who seems pretty strong) jump to bridge I quickly got on her wheel. I tried to get us into a rhythym of working together quickly, because we had almost 30 seconds to make up. Unfortunately, coming through the start/finish, I unintentionally dropped her. So I kept trying to bridge solo. I stayed there for about 4-5 laps. I could see the girl off the front, but couldn't put time into her...the best I could do was hold her steady. Unfortunately for me, the announcer started throwing out primes to motivate the field to chase. Luckily he actually included me in the primes for the chasers, and I got one of them by just a couple inches as the field was about to catch me. From there, I rode conservatively again until the finish. I finished 11th, the South Bay Wheelmen girl won the race solo off the front.

Evanston Crit: I decided to be even more conservative at this race. I still really wanted to get into a breakaway, but just sat in for the first 45 minutes. After that, I still thought that breakaways weren't going to work, so I only went with the moves that I could get into with minimal effort. After some aggressive racing from the field, it still came down to the field sprint. The finish was a fairly long straightaway after two quick left hand 90 degree turns (almost close enough together to make them a 180). Positioning was a tricky call to make--I knew I wanted to be in the top 5 riders for the corners, but it was hard to judge which side of the field to be on, since the protected side before the corners was on the right, and I could pass people and carry more momentum through the turn on the outside. That would have put me on the windy side for the fairly long finishing straight, so I decided to take the inside line on the corners to be more protected. I came out of the corners slower than the girls who had taken the outside, and had to jump harder to regain momentum for the sprint, but once I wound up my sprint I was able to come quite a few riders for 7th since I was out of the wind.

Holly