Today was cold, rainy, and windy. Enough to make any sensible person stay inside, read a book or watch sports on TV. So we all piled into the cars, and headed to Davis for the first Davis Junior Crit. Also to see the start of the Tour of California Stage 1.
A good time was had by all, despite pretty Belgian conditions. It never got above about 47 degrees and often the wind was blowing 20-25 mph, but there was a very strong showing of all of the Team AC members!
First though, the AC dads decided to take Blair’s local knowledge, and turn it into the first AC Hard Man ride.
A nice 20 mile loop (really, a rectangle) around Davis, including part of the TOC course. Blair lead us out, and we immediately hit some very strong winds and intermittent rain. But we had a great ride for a bit more than an hour and got to experience FLAT roads! Amazing stuff. Also got to see the effects of a 20 mph wind from each side, front, and back. Very interesting if you study the speed graph on the GPS recording: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=7632168 What it lacked in altitude, it made up for in wind ;-)
Once we returned, the races started. First, Lance, Fabien, Levi and the other big boys headed out on their ride. They were gone so fast we never really saw them, but I understand they made better time than the Hard Men.
Maybe next year for the rest of us…
First race was Jr. Men 10-14. Spence flew out of the start, immediately attacked and set up an unbreakable lead of 8-12 seconds over the whole rest of the field. Despite some strong challenges, Spence held on and took a very strong First Place. Skyler worked with the chase group, and turned in a Fourth Place in nasty, windy conditions.
Next up were Jr. Men 15-16, with a large, and pretty strong pack. The Specialized team looked very strong, and battled it out at the front with Bjorn, Alex and Isaiah. After much back and forth with each of them taking turns at the lead, and surviving several crashes on the field, Team AC turned in a strong showing (even the announcer recognized all the boys from the ‘cross season!). Bjorn got Second Place, followed (I think) by Alex, Isaiah and Bob. The conditions were the worst during these boys’ rides, with increased wind and rain, and very treacherous conditions. One of the other riders crashed quite hard and had to be medivac’d out of there. Very tough conditions.
The last race for Team AC was Jr. 17-18, which looked more like Cat 2 or Cat 3 – these are full grown men by the looks and the racing level and experience. Chris did a great job hanging in with the big dogs – some of the “boys” have probably been racing for 4-5 years, and were incredibly fast. Chris really hung in there among these really strong riders!
It was a full day, and really great participation – we had SEVEN riders out there – maybe the biggest showing except for Specialized – and a lot of announcer time promoting Team AC!
Way to go guys – a great showing and great performances by all! Here are some photos (lots of them, so choose your own favorites):
http://picasaweb.google.com/glocalize/200902DavisJrCrit?feat=directlink
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