With two riders in Junior 13-14 (Spence and Skyler), and four in the 15-16 race (Bjorn, Isaiah, Alex and Bob), we had a good-sized contingent - even enough to go against the Red Plague (Specialized) team!
First up were the 13-14 boys (about 15 boys, and Katrina Howard).
The race varied in pace over its 20 laps, with a couple of attacks, then settling down into a relatively sedate pace.
Toward the end, the pace picked up, with a group heading out hard, and ending up with a bunch sprint between Dylan Drummond, Spence, Matt Valencia and Katrina Howard.
Turn 4 into the finish straight really set up the sprints, and a good exit was critical to get into the right position. Spence and Dylan hammered down the finish straight, and though it was very close, Dylan captured first this time. Spence came in second by a few feet, and Skyler headed up the gruppeto following the main break, with a solid sixth place.
With a two-hour break between races, the AC Masters (Blair, Ken and Rich) decided to head out for a little ride of their own - a brief tour of Collier Canyon. There was some brisk riding, particularly the finish descent, where Ken acted as the motor-pacer for Blair, and they hammered down to the race start at 30+ MPH.
While the dads relaxed, the 15-16 boys lined up for the start.
In contrast to some of the recent crits, this was JUST the 15-16 boys, so none of the bigger 17-18 racers were in the group of 40 or so boys. The group took off for their 22 laps (about 18 miles).With some back-and-forth, the AC team members took control of the early laps, with Bob jumping into a break and controlling the pace for a few laps, then Alex and Isaiah taking turns catching the other breaks as they developed. Both Bob and Alex put huge efforts into the first half of the race and helped control it well.
Then the second half of the race a break developed with Bjorn and three others, who stayed out the rest of the race, Once again, Turn 4 was key, and there was a big sprint at the end - Bjorn made it in at fourth place, after pulling strongly earlier in the race.
Isaiah, Bob and Alex finished further back, having worked hard on the attacks for much of the race. It was impressive to watch some of the tactics and control that the boys put out this race, and the results don't do justice to the amount of work that they put in on the race - great effort and progress for the boys!
After all that fun riding and racing, a group of six of us (Blair, Rich, Spence, Bob, Alex, Skyler) decided to go ride Mt. Diablo, so we spent a couple of hours adding another 3900 feet of climbing to the day.
It was pretty impressive to see Spence and Skyler leading the group up to the top. The last 200 meters kicked up just to throw salt in the wounds, after about 1.5 hours of climbing!
A fine day of riding all around, and great progress from the boys.
Pictures are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/glocalize/200905CyclesportCritChampionship?feat=directlink
Some of the racers also had comments to add on the race:
Spence:
The 13-14 race had the same showing of riders this weekend as in past races, and winning was obviously was a big goal for every rider because it was state champs. Due to the race being state champs, the race started with an unusually huge number of attacks, and more and more kept going off until the end of the race.
After the start, we rode a couple of laps and as we came around the back side on the 3rd lap, I made an attack. I was suprised how easy I got away, and I rode a couple of laps off the front about 20 meters. I started to see the pack getting a lot closer, so I pulled back. Skyler and I sat mostly in the pack the whole race, preparing for the sprint, and I came around the last corner on the last lap in 2nd, and I ended up finishing 2nd. I felt pretty happy about my result because everything went smoothly, but I wish I would have positioned myself a little better before the last corner though.
Alex:
I think its great that Bjorn got 4th. I bet that if Bjorn made an attack with maybe 6 or 7 laps to go he could stay out with a great finish, while Isaiah, Bob and I could slow down the pack to give him a lead. This worked really well at Snelling.
Isaiah:
Before the race, Bjorn, Alex, Bob, and I scouted out where to be in the peloton on each side of the course, due to the fairly high winds. During first part race, lots of half-hearted attacks (the kind I hate). Eventually a four-man breakaway got away which I wasn't in, partly because I was sitting too far back in the peloton at that time and also because my legs felt pretty bad. Luckily, Bjorn was in it. I tried to bridge up, because I didn't think Bjorn would have a good chance of beating James Laberge, but I wasn't able to. I burnt too many matches trying to bridge up and sucked in the final sprint, finishing way back of my usual 4-6th place.
