#28 Pur tour cat 4

A Saturday race that takes me until Wednesday to have the 10 minutes to write about it?

There were 50 starters to the race, but on this course it could handle much more. A couple of years ago the 3/4 race I was in had 79 riders if memory serves. The course, counterclockwise, has only one turn then the rest is sweeping curves. My object was this, be in the front at the base of the climb and fall back by the top. Recover the downhill and work my way back to the front on the flat.

Well, reality is different.

Not knocking anyone in particular, and not saying I know jack squat about racing (which I don't), but cat 4's have a habit of not attacking, not working and start stopping until the bunch sprint. I don't sprint, I know I don't sprint so I just go into races and do just the opposite of everyone else in the race. It causes me to get dropped, but I don't like paying that kind of money to have a dangerous and boring group ride.

10 seconds into the very first lap, no one decides to pull so I go to the front and pull the first 1.75 laps to the 2nd climb. THEN I start my objective. It worked just fine for the 5-6 laps, until some guy who was on the front slows down and swerves way right and cutting off half the field. If we all weren't paying attention, half of the field could have gone down in the heap. Luckily, the other half was going quite slow as we were at the top of the hill. By this point I was gassed from the hill, but frustrated from the "racing", I pulled out my old school anger card and went to the front and pulled...

Mistake.

I used to have the ability to attack or pull hard and recover quick. That's not working this year, so the end result was only to destroy myself with the pull. I couldn't stay with the field the next time up the hill so I rode the last 3 laps solo as hard as I could. Finished dead last, with two people dnf'ing, in 48th place.

The good news is, is that the cross bike is scheduled for delivery today! Actually it was here yesterday but I wasn't so I could not sign for it.