North Boulder
Park
July 7, 2006
Complete results here - Complete photos here - 2006 Road Racing results here - Derek's race here
How sweet it is! Winning is a great feeling and I notched my 2nd road victory of the year today and my first ever in a Criterium. For me to win a race a lot of things need to go right and they did today. Having a small field always increases your chances and we had only about 23 at the start line today – the smallest field I’ve ever raced in. Four quick turns near the finish certainly helped me as well. But the real reason I won was the great work done by my team. Chris and Kris took a few flyers each during the race and my competitors were forced to chase them down, burning a few of their matches. Gene and Shawn did some work on the front as well, but mostly Gene was riding wheels like me, since we were the best sprinters on the team. Chris Busacca did everything he could to deliver me to the final straight and he was absolutely brilliant the last two laps.
My friend, Ira, at Excel was the race directory for this
event, so I wanted to make a strong showing. Our team was five deep, all fairly
good crit riders: Chris Busacca, Kris Thompson, Gene-O Palumbo, Shawn, and
myself. We strategized ourselves to death the week before, but it was fun. Our
team leader, Bruce, would be out cheering us on. He’s still recovering from a
40 mph crash with a deer and saving himself for the hill climbs in the coming
weeks. 
The course circled North
Boulder Park, a 0.6-mile loop, and our race was 45 minutes long. I left the
house at 7:15 a.m. for our 8:45 start. I wanted time to fully warm-up for once.
The race would be hard, start to finish, and there was only one stretch, along
I met Kris Thompson at the start and after getting our numbers pinned on, we went for a ride to warm-up. We rode for 30 minutes, made a last bathroom stop and then only got to ride one lap before staging. I was surprised by the small field, as the course is classic, the viewing is great, and it was an important BAT race. Perhaps the weather was a factory. It had rained hard the night before and drizzled a bit before our race, but we had dry roads for our race and not rain until after we finished. Sear, our rival BAT team, was represented by four riders. A couple of them were Doug McGhee, a superb time trialist, and Sam Linzell, the winner of the Rocky Mounts Criterium.
I staged next to the barriers so that I could hang onto them and get both feet clipped in before the start. When the gun went off I moved quickly up to the front five riders. I’d spend most of the race in the top five, as planned, but did slip back a couple of times, as the photos indicate. The course started with a significant hill and I wondered if I should start in my small chain ring because of this. I didn’t and rode the entire race in the big chain ring, as usual. This hill did cause some pain on each lap and it was a good place to move up. A few attacks were launched at the bottom of this hill, but it was enough of a rise where it stressed the field. Some riders attacked at the bottom of this hill, but they seemed to be reeled in by the top of it, despite it being so short. I was planning an attack near the top of the hill, but never found the right opportunity. Translation: I was chicken.
Chris and Kris were out attacking demons, as usual. They went early and often. I had visions of doing this myself, but not until five laps to go. Once again, I failed to attack and I’d really regret that, if I hadn’t won the race. The race had many surges and small attacks, but nothing stayed away for even half a lap. That’s just the way things usually go in the Cat. 4’s, especially with a small field.
The course was basically a rectangle with the southwest corner a 3-turn chicane. The northwest corner was a tricky one as well because we went from a wide street to a one-lane alley, which ran directly alongside the park. On the second to last lap, I was second wheel into this turn with Busacca right next to me. A Sear rider, Doug McGhee, slid out here and went down, taking a CU rider, and Kris and Shawn with him. No one was hurt, but there was no way they were catching the pack with less than two laps to go. This was very unfortunate since both Kris and Shawn were riding very strong. This crash was very close to the front of the peloton, maybe third wheel. It seemed for a moment that it was just Chris and I. We looked at each other and wondered if we should attack. It’s not sporting to attack after a crash, but it happens all the time. Soon a big group was formed again, but it was probably down to 15 riders. Four went down in the crash, but others got held up behind it.
On the last corner of the Chicane, Chris was leading with me second wheel when he called out, “Come on, guys, we have a break.” He was urging the others to work, they way he always does, but we had 1.5 laps to go and there was no catching back on whether they worked or not. As he said this, he moved to his right in order to take the last turn at a better angle. Coming right after his comment, I misinterpreted his movement to mean that I was to pull through, so I moved up. But then he dove into the turn and we were touching shoulders. We straightened ourselves out quickly and I was on the front coming into the final lap. I wasn’t going hard, though, and when another rider came by on the hill, Busacca reacted and I got on his wheel.
Chris
led me through the dangerous corner and down the alley. He took the lead in the
bike race at this point and I was on his wheel through the chicane. He took a
perfect line and kept the pace so high that it was all strung out, single file.
He turned onto
Second place was Richard Light of Valdoro. He won the City
Park Crit where I took second. I knew he had great finishing speed, but he came
out of the last corner eighth wheel and had no chance to catch me from that
position. Gene finished with a vicious sprint and caught and passed the first
Sear rider to get third. We owned 2/3’s of the podium. After his great leadout,
Busacca held on for 11th. Our team finished 1st, 3rd,
and 11th to Sear’s finish of 4th, 6th, and 10th.
We gained 12 more points on Sear at this crit. We gained 10 points at the last
crit. We are still 19 points behind Sear, but after the Horgan Hill Climb next
weekend, we should be solidly in first. Then we have 
Busacca really is an incredible team rider. For a guy that is as driven to win as he is and as strong as he is, you’d think he’d expect everyone else to work for him. I wish I could help him more in the road races, but he never seems to tire no matter how many times he attacks, while I tire more easily. I’ve benefited immensely from the work done by this team. I’m looking for ways to pay back (besides being the team equipment manager). I did some blocking at the Boulder Beer Race and I’m happy leading out Gene at any crit, but I’m anxious to do more. Maybe I can help out at Salida.
I’m relieved that Kris and Shawn weren’t injured in the
crash. Now that Gene has produced some good results, Kris is definitely the new
unluckiest guy on the team. I know from getting dropped by him on Lee Hill and
Before this race I got an email from Yvonne, the Executive Director of the ACA[1] , telling me that I had enough points to upgrade to Cat. 3. She had me at 23 points, but I think I only have 22 points. She also mentioned that if she included the G.C. points from Dead Dog, I’d have 28 points, only two points away from the mandatory. I pointed out that G.C. points don’t count from upgrades from Cat. 4 to Cat. 3 and she agreed, though pointed out that the rule was mainly meant for new riders in Category 4 and not in the Masters 35+ / Category 4. I told her that I didn’t want to upgrade at all this year. I wanted to finish the season with my team. I might not have the choice, though, for when I hit 30 points, I’m gone. Fortunately, you don’t get any points if the field size is below 30 riders. Since we only had 23, then I don’t get any points for this race. That’s a good thing.
This race was very well organized and it is a classic course - one that featured in the old Red Zinger and Coors Classic stage races of the 1980's. I believe Greg LeMond raced on this course. The prizes were incredible as well. For my efforts, I got a $50 Cateye wireless bike computer, a pair of Rudy Project sunglasses with case and lens kit, and two water bottles. The prizes for 2nd and 3rd place were nearly as good. I highly recommend this race. Unfortunately for the race organizers, the weather was the worst all summer. It started raining 5 minutes after our race and would rain the entire rest of the day. This is unbelievable rare in Colorado at any time and especially in July. When it rains in July, it is usually very hard and very short.
As the graph below indicates, we did 27 laps and the race lasted 45m10s – talk about timing a Criterium perfectly! We climbed 470 feet during the race and covered (27 * 0.6) 16.2 miles for an average speed of 21.6 mph. Man, it seemed faster than that, but the hill and the corners definitely slowed things down. My heart rate average was 157 bpm and the most encouraging thing was that I hit 180 bpm in the sprint, which is the highest heart rate I’ve seen all year. It shows that I was truly going all out.
