Time Trial and Crit at River Gorge

The Time Trial:

After the road race we had some quick recovery to do and then there was the time trial that afternoon. I HATE time trials. I do about 2-3 a year at most. I do not own a time trial bike, helmet, or even areobars. I think owning any of the above would make me:
1. a serious road racer and
2. obligated to do more time trials.

Gina has a kick butt TT bike and she showed up looking fast. In fact, everyone in our field except for myself and one other girl had TT gear. Uh oh. Time for me to minimized losses. The weekend was an omnium so it was figured out on placing not overall time. That is a good thing for the girl out there doing the TT "Eddy Merckx" style.

The short version: it sucked. I did okay, actually pretty well for not having the gear. I ended up 4th and Gina was 8th. Going into the crit I was in second place overall. Not bad at all for someone who had no expectations for the weekend.

The Criterium:

Rain. Yuck. We have been in a drought for the past year and a half so we are really getting spoiled with sunny race day weather. The crit course was in beautiful downtown Chattanooga...complete with pretty (faux) brick intersections. Let me tell you about those pretty intersections; they turn into ICE when it rains. Not good for skinny little tires.

It stopped raining before our race started and we were about to be really happy until the rain started up again. We took turn 4 at about 10mph and still had two crashes (including Gina...she's okay. More on that later). We had a strong field and early in the race they called a prime (a prize for the winner of the next lap), I went for it. It was a pair of $120 trail running shoes. With cyclocross just around the corner I need new running shoes.... I WON IT. Unfortunately, right after that Andrea attacked and although I chased her, a lapped rider got in the way at the wrong time. No one else in the field wanted to help bring her back and Gina was gone after her fall. I was very VERY irritated. I hate negative women's racing. We had plenty of people that were strong enough to work and bring her back but I wasn't going to do all the work so someone else could then attack. I ended up getting really frustrated and attacking on the last lap. The theory was "fine, if you want to beat me then you'll have to catch me". Only one girl got me at the line. I took third, which gave me third for the weekend.

After Gina's crash she forgot to take her free lap (if you crash in a crit you get a free lap and get to get back in where you were when you went down), chased the whole race, and passed out afterwards when she looked at her skinned up knuckles. Because she stuck it out and finished the race she ended up fourth overall for the weekend. GREAT JOB GINA!!!!

It was a ton of fun. I am so glad that the SCV guys talked me into racing it. They put on a top notch event. And the hometown crowd was incredible.

Thanks!!!