Provo, UT — Since we didn’t race until this evening, we spent a nice quiet day around the hotel. We hit a couple bike shops in the area and then just lounged around. Then we got our race stuff together and headed to Downtown Provo for tonight’s criterium. We picked up our packets and tried to get an idea of how many more racers decided to register day of. It looked like Heather and I would both have small fields—there were only 15 in Heather’s field and 40 in mine. This was disappointing not only because my races now won’t qualify for upgrade points, but because a lot of money and work is going into this event and it’s sad to see such poor turnout for what is developing into a great race.
Since we were early we had time to chit chat with folks and I dinked around with my digital SLR camera. When the course opened for pre-riding, my teammates and I took a few laps and talked strategy. The course, though better than last year, still had some issues. Many of the corners had manhole covers, dips, or both which made them dicey. Also, a few of the stretches of the figure-8 course were only half the road. So some turns you’d go from a wide boulevard to a narrow, median divided street, others it would be vice versa. These factors made the course pretty technical. Heather had a good race and she won a couple primes. But when it came time for the final lap she didn’t go hard enough before the last corner and ended up getting fourth. Still pretty good, but she was a little disappointed.
I got a short but good warm-up on my rollers before heading to the line. I was assertive and lined up in second row. We started and I immediately went to the front. I stayed at the front for the next few laps and the pace was consistently high. At one point I came around the second corner and I saw my teammate Ben picking himself up from the barricades. This was one of the sections that we only had half the road. It was sketchy since there was a huge manhole cover that dipped 3 inches below the road surface that you had to ride either on the inside or outside of. I guess Ben took the outside line and ended up hitting a barricade. He seemed to be OK but I could tell he slow in getting up and probably wouldn’t be jumping back in after his free lap.
The race continued to go fast and it felt like my limiter was my lungs. The air felt thick and it felt like I couldn’t get enough oxygen, probably due to the altitude. After a while, Ted got up to the front for a while and I slacked off a little and slipped towards the back of the pack. I probably was too far back but we still had a few laps to go so I was hoping I’d be Ok. There were more breaks the last half of the race but they were usually reeled in a lap or two. With 9 laps to go, I decided it was time to move back towards the front.
At about 3 laps to go, there was a lull and I attacked. I pushed it as hard as I could and got a gap. Another rider followed me and he asked if I was going to work. I yelled “Yes!” at him and we tried to work together. But for some reason the rotation wasn’t very smooth. I think we had different ideas of who should pull when. Regardless, we still kept pushing. When we came across the line the first time I couldn’t see the lap counter and wasn’t sure how many laps we had left. For some reason I thought we had only one lap, but now that I think about it, they weren’t ringing the bell. So when we came around again, the counter said one to go and by then the pack was bearing down on us. I was toast at this point but I tried to stay in the top ten when they went by.
Fortunately, Ted was up there and followed an attack from another rider. But then the other rider hit the barricade where Ben had gone down and he somersaulted! Ted just barely missed the wreckage but he kept going. I even yelled at him to go hoping he could hold it off. I knew it would be a long shot since it was still a ways out, but you never know. Unfortunately he got caught and I got swarmed at the half-lap point. But by then there was no hope for a win for either of us. I still sprinted hard since the omnium points went twenty deep and even passed Ted. I got 16th and Ted was 18th.