Sunny King Criterium

Well, my first criterium was VERY interesting. First of all, God sure must of wanted it to be a challenge for me because it was raining intensly prior to and during the race. So, that added another thing to drive up my blood pressure (besides the fact that I'd never done a criterium before).

The race started much differently than I expected---FAST!! When the gun went off, the front guys took off so fast that I was left off the back of the group. I found some other guys in the same predicament that I was in, so we worked together drafting back up. The only problem was, these guys weren't gaining ground fast enough. If someone would've went off the front at that point, I would've been in huge trouble. My brother, Barrett, was about 2-3 guys in front of me during the opening five laps or so. Eventually, I noted that he had made it back to the front group, and I was only about 3-4 seconds behind them. At this point, I'm wondering how in the world I'll ever have a chance in this race.

So, I set my goal to move up one place every lap. I would draft on a guy up until the last turn, then I'd go around him and move up to the next guy. Eventually, I found myself in the lead group, albeit at the back. This went on for a couple of laps (15 minutes of time had elapsed already), and I was noticing that on the front stretch I would gain ground easily because it was a slight uphill. This is where I figured I'd have to make my move because the other side of the course was downhill, and it would be scary to go into a turn at 30+ mph.

So, with 8 laps to go, I moved up on the outside of the group just past the start/finish line and went into the first turn and poured on the gas. My HR skyrocketed, and I didn't look back until the third turn on the course and I didn't see anyone right on me. At that point, 8 laps was a long way to go solo, but I don't have the sprint speed to stay in the group. Also, I didn't see Barrett anywhere, so I decided to keep the pedal down and go for it. Each lap that passed, the announcer (Frankie Andreau--former US Postal rider and commentator for Versus cycling coverage) would say lets hear it for our solo leader. That was inspirational I must say, but I owe a ton of gratitude to Barrett. He really held the group up by playing around with small sprints, etc. I put in hard work, but I think his help sealed the deal for me.

Now, you'll probably think by now that everything went smooth and I won. Well, with two laps to go, I went into the first turn and my rear wheel JUMPED to the side, and I almost went down. That really got me nervous, and to add to my nervousness my rear wheel seemed to be fishtailing. I didn't know what was going on, but I had to take the turns way slower than I had all race. I was afraid the guys would catch me because I was slowing down so bad. Thankfully, everything held together, and I did win the race. Afterwards, I got interviewed by Frankie Andreau (which was a cool and very nervous moment) over the loudspeaker. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I asked a mechanic to take a look at my bike that we found I had broken a spoke (and it was completely missing from the wheel). I am so thankful that it happened when it did, because I couldn't have ridden long like that with the brakes rubbing on the wheel!!

I am including a picture of my interview with Frankie.