matts cycling blog

Illinois crit

Yestarday cole and I drove down to some crit in chicago. I was totally ghetto glass every where on the course. The course was easy mostly flat no turns just graduall stuff around a lake. In the jrs Cole and I worked together and double teamed the other jrs attacking them. I got away for a lap then got caught. Cole attacked and easily got away. I attacked the group until they started giving us priems so i just kept getting those. Cole ended up lapping us I won the field sprint taking 3rd. I let a jr rider go just being content with taking priem after priem.
The 1,2 race was awsome. I felt like getting a good work out in. Roughly 40 riders showed up racing for 1000 dollars over 15 places. I attacked on the 2nd lap, and got away 1 other rider came with me, we easily put 30 seconds into the field. They brang us back 15 minutes in, but they never fully closed the gap and our advantage stretched out again. About 25 min in endevour decided theyd had enough of the break, and there 4 riders just pushed the pace and brang us back. After we got caught 5 riders countered. Getting a good lead. I waited a lap then bridged up taking one other rider with me. We caught the break in a lap or so sat on and starting pushing the break. I look back and i see cole latch on also to the break. So we had 8 or 9 guys in the break 3 of them were endevour. So our chances of making the break work were good. Every thing was going well until about 20 min to go some of the riders started getting shelled. So the break got narrowed down to 6. 2 riders got away. Then it was me cole and some other masters dude. We had about 16 laps to go. So we just started pulling, we kept our gap on the field. Then with 2 to go cole and i started attacking the other rider with us. He was a strong rider and kept with us. We stopped working together and pretty much sat around with 1 to go. Out of nowhere anther endevour rider bridged from the pack to us and imeddiatly attacked our group. Getting a decent gap. I waited not wanting to chase him and have everyone else on my wheel then get screwed over at the finish. I jumped on a small rise in the last stretch. I thought i had the sprint of our group easily taken when i hear a whoosh whoosh, and cole is coming up on me in the last 10 feet. I clicked it down anther gear, and took him by a few inches. He and i got 4th and 5th out of a tough field. Not bad for a couple 17 year olds. We each took home over 100 bucks on the day. I got 7 or 8 priems on the day. Which included a set of the 180 gram maxxis tires, 15 maxxis tubes, maxxis t-shirt, Vision quest t-shirt and 2 cycling caps, and 2 boxes of clif bars.

posted by Matt Brandt @ 12:36 PM