Hyde Park Blast Criterium

We timed our mid summer visit to the wife's parents house to coincide with the Hyde Park Blast Criterium in Cincinnati. My Cat. 4 race was at 7:15pm. There was a downpour around 4pm, but the course was fairly dry by the start of my race. I wasn't able to get a good warm-up because there just wasn't any place to ride without dodging cars. I chose a 150 meter section of closed street and rode up and down it about 10 thousand times. The course was a 1km loop with a 180 in Hyde Park Square at one end and a steep little side street climb and then a decent before heading back toward the square. There were 50 racers at the start.

I didn't get a great start because I missed my pedal, but over the first 3 laps I was able to move up to where I wanted to be. I felt like I was working pretty hard and I am not sure if it was because I had a bit of a cold, or because the climb wasn't allowing my HR to settle down. Either way my avg HR was at 88% of max which is higher than normal for me unless I get in a break.

There was a selection of about 15 riders with 3 to go (I heard the announcer say that, I didn't actually count us). I found myself pulling on the front on the 2nd to last lap. I let someone else pull through and took 4th wheel for the last lap. We went hard up the climb and fast on the decent, but then the leader slowed a bit. I started moving around on the left with 300 meters to go. I saw two racers moving fast on the right. We ended up with a selection of 6 with 150 meters to go. One rider was fast and was obviously going to win. I came around on the right and got by two and thought maybe three, but the results showed me in 4th. I honestly thought I got 3rd, but the camera doesn't lie. I raced as hard as I could for the way I felt, but I am still disappointed. Oh well.


This photo is with about 50 meters to go. I am in blue and white. I came past all but the guy in blue white and black in the middle.


My biggest fan.

I had a training incident last week that still gets me worked up thinking about it. I was coming to an intersection on my lunch training route. It is a light with two straight lanes and a right turn lane. The light was red. I was in the right turn lane because I was turning right. As I approached the light I heard breaks squealing and looked over in time to see some asshole in a pick up pulling a boat about to hit the truck in the lane to my left. So what does he do?? He hammers the wheel to the right coming into my lane and runs me off the road with his boat trailer. I was pissed, but was reasonable at that point. I rode up along side him and yelled, "PAY ATTENTION!" He said "FUCK OFF" and made the right turn on red. I yelled, "PULL OVER MOTHERFUCKER BECAUSE I AM GOING TO KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS!" He hit the breaks and swerved over. I unclipped and had a smile on my face because I wanted to kill the dude. When he saw me about to dismount he took off. I chased him hoping I could catch him at the next light, but wasn't able to get there in time. I am usually pretty reasonable. But if you almost run me over and then tell me to fuck off, you better be ready to throw some hands.

Here is #5 on the list of "Top 5 Sprint Finish Crashes." This one is mild to soften you up for the carnage to come. Here is Tom Boonen crashing at the end of the 2003 Ghent-Wevelgem. This piece is cool because of the camera work from behind the sprint. The others in the sprint are: 1st - Andreas Klier (Telecom), 2nd - Henk Vogels (Navigators), and 4th - Alberto Ongarato (Domina Vacanze). Boonen got 3rd.