Ronde was a two day ominium formatted race. I did both days. Here's my recap of what happened.
Day 1, the Crit.
The course was pancake flat and there was no wind. There was a hairpin 180 degree turn that ended up being the biggest feature on the course. Speeds would slow from 28mph going into it to 5mph to go around it and then spring back up again. There were lots of people dragging pedals and clipping wheels in the hairpin. Cat 4's, we're awesome bike handlers apparently.
The other feature of the crit was that there was really only one straight section. While there were only a few actual corners, even including the hairpin, it as always turning somewhere and because we're such good bike handlers it basically means that we have to grab our brakes going into every turn and make the speeds yo-yo as much as possible.
There were two big crashes. I avoided both. The first one I almost go caught up in because the guys closest to it swerved right so hard that I had to lean into one of them to keep us both on course. I am awesome. The second happened on the corner entering the finish straight. No idea what happened but one guy's top tube looked like somebody hit repeatedly with a bat. This crash was apparently ugly as my girlfriend said she actually gasp when it happened. When this crash happened I had already given up and was just making enough effort to stay in contact. I am maybe no so awesome.
I realized about half way through that in order to move up in this race you had to basically put a negative value on all the other lives in the race due to the lack of straights and so many corners. The only way to move up was to dive into the inside line in a corner and hope that you scared the guy who's spot you were trying to take enough to grab his brakes. Maybe that's how racing is supposed to go, but I'm not really willing to cause a massive pile up and risk injurying a bunch of dudes just because I want to move up and try and win this race. Crashes happen, sure, but they don't need to be caused because of sketchy shit. With about 5 laps to go I sprinted down the start/finish to try and move up. I moved up to the top 10 and then by the time we got back to start finish I was in the back half again because of guys diving in corners and people grabbing brakes. After that, I decided I would rather not die, and just finish in the group.
Apparently a bunch of guys were shelled, which I was surprised about because while it was quick, I never felt like it was that fast. Then again, my girlfriend did question whether or not I was even trying because everybody else apparently looked like death and I just looked frustrated.
Day 2, the Circuit.
This course had 1 big downhill, 1 climb and almost no flat. On the 2nd lap two guys attacked at the bottom of the climb. They opened a little gap but not much. Nobody seemed to want to chase so I waited a bit and then went to bridge up to them. There was a lot of racing left in the day and I really didn't then we'd stay away, however, I didn't want to finish this race feeling like I just rode in circles. I wanted to at least say I tried. When I jumped a guy tried to come with me which I thought was good since we'd have 4. However, he couldn't hang on and went back to the pack. When I made it up to the first two guys we had a couple hundred meters I guess heading into the downhill portion. In my opinion we were working pretty well together considering we were doing close to 40mph and all three of us seemed to be totally spun out in our biggest gear. One guy kept yelling to work together, but I don't know what he wanted really. I took over the front and "pulled" the rest of the "descent" and then through the hard right hand turn. When I moved over to let the another guy come through I glanced over my shoulder and saw that we were pretty much all back together so we sat up.
The rest of the race was boring with a lot of moving up on the climb and giving back spots on the descent. Oh, and being marveled on each lap at the various lines guys would chose to ride through the corners on the descent. It seems to me some guys have either never watched a motorcycle race or pros. They also forget that there are at least 75 guys around them that have to adjust their lines when they choose to use 4 to get through a corner.
On the last lap I started the descent about 20 wheels off the front. I thought if I could hold that I'd be able to quickly pass about 10 guys and try and make myself a factor for the finish. Unfortunately I let way too many people pass me on the descent and stuck myself on the left side of the pack on the climb which was the side exposed to the really gusty wind. With no option to work myself to the right I burned all my matches on the bottom half of the climb trying to move up. By the time I was starting to get to where I thought I needed to be for the finishing kick a few guys jumped and I didn't really have much left to follow. I once again watched the win go up to road because I put myself in a plethora of bad spots on the last lap.
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