...fasten your race chains

13.7.09

Champaign Crit: Day 1: FASTGRRRLZ ADOPT NEW RACE STRATEGY

***WARNING***
The following blogpost is based solely on B.Chan's interpretation of Saturday's events.
It contains unsportsmanlike language;
Those easily offended need not read further.

Day 1 was fun-- we threw the regular attacks, waiting for one to stick and finally A.Miles got away. And boyyyy did she get away :) We basically played the same game but in opposite positions as Proctor. And blocking, although not as glorified as the break, is actually kind of fun. Especially when you are commanding the break. I would just sit in and chase movesif it looked like any girl was going to try to get away and occasionally heat things up to test who was tired and willing to chase and who was done for.

And then it began to rain. My original plan was to attack somewhere between 4 and 3 laps to go. I think I went at about 3 and gained some ground, but I could feel my back wheel slip out just a little bit more every time I went around a corner. Scary stuff. I slowed up and the chase was able to catch me. With two laps to go things got very, very confusing. Anona came around to lap the chase, also toting two girls, somewhere around the last turn. My immediate instinct was to chase her, but when I saw the girls she was toting with her, I was fairly certain the group I was in had already lapped these girls. No one else in the chase made any effort to jump so I stayed with them. We approach the last straight away and I see a girl in the group get out of her pedals. I'm not sure at this point if we have 1 lap to go still and she's attacking or if this is the last lap and she's sprinting for the finish. So I sped things up to stay with her. Before I knew it I was sliding through turn 1. Wanting to make sure I had clinched 2nd, I pick my bike up, jump back on and finish 1 last lap.

And this is where things got really screwy. Apparently I was not 2nd, as I thought, but 4th. According to the officials, the two girls on Anona's wheel had not been lapped by the chase, but instead had used her to blow past us. I have serious, serious doubts as to whether this was actually how the race went down. But if that's what really happened, then that's just tough sh*t and I should have known better.

But what made me the angriest about the whole situation was the incredibly disrespectful and unprofessional manner in which the officials handled the situation. Before the girl who actually should have gotten 4th place and I even made it to the MC stand, the officials snapped "You're wrong!" and told us to check our rule books. They refused to listen to our side of the story and kept demanding that we take out our rulebooks and reference the rules. (I'm sorry, but I don't carry my official copy of the USA cycling rulebook on my person at all times. It's so not aero.) One of the officials, who I doubt could even physically get ON a bike, kept reading the same ambiguous "rule" outloud. The icing on the cake of course was that due to a tacky manicure, this very same official could barely turn the pages of her own rule book. However, after being read several rules, tinted by by the officials' interpretations (which are, of course, correct because officials "go to official cycling referee camp in Colorado and take tests") I learned that had I sprinted down that last straight away and won the sprint I would have won the race. Riiiiiight.

This new and improved race strategy will certainly get me far at Evanston next weekend.


Anyways, in typical Stanley manner I rolled home to patch myself up from the crash and fume about the potential upgrade points I will not be receiving. I didn't race the women's open, and quite honestly, I don't regret that decision. Instead I rode back on the tandem with A.Dillon's brother, Andrew, and amazingly, I didn't kill us. After that it was delightful dinner with A.Dillon's family at Crane Alley, and then I crashed the Verizon Wireless team dinner (woops...)

4 comments:

Anona said...

yeah..so what we do is ride really slowly until the flier laps us. we don't get on her wheel. then we wait for the peloton. we can "try" to get their wheel but then we get "dropped". we wait for the flier. we get on her wheel. we sprint for second...or wait...we could sprint for first, right?

Ragfield said...

That's all? I was expecting to be much more offended.

Seriously, that's a tough break, and you have the right to be a little upset. Transform your anger into something positive by dominating your next race.

-Rob

SiouxGeonz said...

This person doing traffic control absolutely knows the judges were full of crap. Me saw. Nasty Girl needs some growin' up.

Will said...

Becky,

this is so random. Somewhere in Nevada we, the Bike and Builders, met up with a group of riders also doing a cross country bike trip. They were called 42 Below, promoting vodka or some shit. Anyway after talking to one of the girls she mentioned that she had entered a race while passing through Champaign, IL and proceeded to tell me this story about getting lapped and then grabbing the leaders wheel, which I guess was Anona. I just read your blog for 40 minutes trying to find if y'all ran into her, apparently you did. Small freaking world.

Hope all is well in Philly!

Will