7th Annual Chris Hinds Crit Report
A few Thresholders made their way to the 7th Annual Chris Hinds Memorial Crit in Charlestown, Rhode Island today. I raced the 5’s at 8AM, Curt raced the 4’s at 8:55AM and Leo raced the Pro-1-2-3 at 11:55AM.
The short recap is that I finished 7th out of 17, Curt finished 15/16th of 40ish and Leo managed to stay with the main field despite being a CAT 3 in a Pro’s race (no official word on placing for him yet).
The long recap for the 5’s is all I have, so here goes…….Curt and I arrived at about 7:20 and quickly picked out the best spot in the parking lot to watch races from while still being able to sit in the tail of his SUV. A short run to registration to get my number and pay and all that jazz . By 7:30 I was up on my trainer and starting to warmup. 20 minutes of warmup was all I was going to get today, but it proved to be sufficient.
So I mosey onto the course and do a couple of laps to try and figure out lines and get a feel for it and at the end of my second lap I get stopped at the start/finish line. Yay, for once I get to line up at the front. Turns out the field was only 17 guys so it wasn’t as important as in past races. The marshall says his little speech and away we go.
I got into my pedals fairly quick and was first to get to the first turn. First was where I would stay for the entire first lap. I went at my own pace, quickly realizing that the high winds were why nobody was passing me yet.
After the first lap someone grew tired of my liesurely pace and finally took a pull. This was the way it was for most of the race. It had kind of a “No, you pull” ebb and flow until about 3 laps to go, when the pace picked up to what I would have expected it to be on any other day. We immediately shed any loose baggage and racers hanging on for dear life. A small group of three tried to break away with 2 to go, but were forced back to the main group once they hit the harsh winds on the final stretch. At one lap to go I had found my mark’s wheel and stuck to it. I followed him as best I could, but he proved to be too strong for me to stay on his wheel. I lost it right at the turn where the wind hits you head on and I then became the one pulling for the rest of the group. All but 1 passed me in the final sprint and I ended up placing 7th.
Some more images from the day 
You can’t see it, but my bib number is 69
Curt won a Preem! A Fuji wind jacket, how appropriate!
Curt did a little pulling himself after his preem lap.
Another fine shot of Mr Comber.
April 12th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Yeah Semi-PRO, Cuke! Nice work
April 12th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Joe, you are looking pro on the bike! Curt, way to snag some swag.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
nice post! wish i felt well enough to race… sounds like fun.