The Race: Speed Week NCC Spartanburg Regional Classic Criterium
The Course: 50 laps of a 4-corner course
The Field: 1/2 women
The Finish: Top 10
Speed Week continues to be unseasonably chilly and damp, and the evening of the Spartanburg Crit was no exception. A grey, cool day turned windy and wet during our warm up and when we staged on the course, everything was unnervingly slick. I started on the front row thanks to my lap leader call-up and jumped on the whistle to settle comfortably into third wheel. The fifty laps were largely uneventful – attacks were short-lived and I focused on riding efficiently and not wastefully burning matches. Our director taught us a few tricks before the race to help with this and I was excited to see that they worked. While I’m not going to share trade secrets, I will say that part of it is learning to ride more with no regard for ego. It’s difficult – of course I want to ride strong and show what I can do – but when I’m able to let go preconceived notions of how a “good” rider races, that’s when I’m able to do my best riding. Working for my teammates has already become second-nature; my finishes this week have all been completely irrelevant (and amusingly far back) once my job is done, and I don’t mind at all. But yesterday I realized that sometimes I’m still caught up in trying to ride a certain way during races and that style is costing me energy unnecessarily. If I can put aside those tendencies, I’ll be stronger, fresher, and more prepared to support my team.
But back to yesterday’s race. When it came time to set up our lead-out train at the end of the race, my teammates and I gathered at the front but didn’t execute the plan as well as we should have. We are still learning how a leadout should come together and how fast it should be and, while we were busy trying to sort that out, the riders from Fearless Femme jumped on the front, ratcheted up the pace hard, and caught us off guard. We finished 9th and 10th in the field sprint, a disappointing end to what had been a promising race. We won’t make the same mistakes at the Belmont Crit.
