Going fast & having fun

Written by Robert Neary

I took 2nd place at the CBR Socal Criterium Series #5 at Dominguez Hills on May 5th in the Masters 60+ Race. 

Without 60+ teammate Chris Hahn, who was racing at a separate Norcal event, I started the criterium without any teammates. So, today, it was up to me to represent the 805 Race Team!  At the start with a field of about 35 racers, I noticed there were quite a few really good sprinters, and a couple sporting Stars & Stripes on the sleeves being former National Champions.  At previous races this year, I haven’t been real successful against these guys in field sprints, so my thought at the start was “I need to get into a break”, and with the current wind conditions, a break off the front might just work today! Several break attempts were made by noteworthy riders, me included, but all were chased down, before finally a group of 4 riders managed to get off and hover about a hundred yards off the front of the main field.  I knew it was probably the winning break, and I wasn’t a part of it.  Brett Clare sporting Stars & Stripes on his sleeve from the Davis Phinney Foundation team was thinking the same thing as me and took off to bridge the gap. I managed to jump on his wheel along with one other parasite.  Without dragging the rest of the field, we caught the 4 leaders in a hard three quarters of a lap effort, and when we caught them everyone sat up even though we had a good gap on the field.  So, I went to the front and kept the pace hard for a lap, and thats the last time we saw the main field.  Then there were seven, with about 20 minutes to go in a 50 minute race.  For the first couple of laps together, the group wasn’t working together very well, but after a bit of yelling and convincing conversations from others, everyone started pulling through taking their turns. Some pulling through harder than others of course.  About this time we got the lap cards with 6 laps to go.  I was on Bretts wheel in the rotation knowing he was the guy to watch, and we both just finished our rotational pulls out front going into turn 1 of the final lap. So, we both got a slight rest sitting on between turn 1, 2 and 3.   I knew it was going to be a long sprint as the finish line was almost all the way to turn 1, I thought it wouldn’t really start until after turn 4.  I was a bit surprised when Brett started winding it up coming out of turn 3 and by turn 4 we had so much speed we passed the other five by taking the outside line, and I was on him like glue sprinting for the finish with a slight incline and into a cross/headwind coming from the left.  Brett was almost in the gutter on the right so if I was going to beat him, I was going to have to pass him going left into the wind.  I gave it my best shot, however he proved to be the stronger faster rider this day, as he beat me by a couple of bike lengths.  I was excited with 2nd place, as it’s been some time since my last podium.