Brad Lewis Crit

I finished the Brad Lewis crit today - my first time ever finishing that race.

I have to admit that the previous post about strategy was a hoax meant to baffle my competitors. If you read Jen's blog you saw that we really didn't have a strategy today.

I was being extra conservative for two reasons - one I didn't want to get dropped like yesterday and two it was raining and slick. I need to figure out a happy balance between being overly aggressive and resting. Since it was raining it was a good excuse to hold back and err on the cautious side.

I didn't reduce the pressure in my tires before the race which was a mistake. I had the good 'ol 120 psi that I always use. But after slipping and almost crashing myself a few times I think that I will experiment with lower pressure next time it rains. I was going to move up and do something at the end but after almost biting it I really lost my nerve. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with the bike. But afterwords I checked - nothing wrong just a slippery course.

My teammate Jen rode really solidly. I tried to get on her wheel whenever I could.

At one point in the race somebody was doing what I thought was a blocking move and really slowed down in the downhill corner. Maybe they were just going extra slow but I was already on edge so I yelled at them for being dangerous. I don't really like yelling but if I think it's a safety issue I'm going to let them know.

Luckily for us no one went down this time in our field and it was a safe race despite the rain. Thanks to everyone out there cheering.

Here is a short video of the 3's race after me.