Tilles Park Crits

Ok so the day after Hillsboro I traveled into St Louis for my first taste of crit racing. I wanted to take the info that I learned at Hillsboro and use it to improve at this race. First up was the Cat 5 race in the morning. It was a 20 min race +4 laps. The coarse was 8/10th of a miles and pretty much flat, no corners to really speak of so there was no real gaining through the corners. I started out great, even lead for a lap and a half, I stayed up at the front for most of the race ducking in and trying to rest here and there. I found it very hard to get into a good draft though and was caught out in the wind too much. By the last couple laps people that I had not seen for the entire race were flying around me and there was nothing I could do. So really I did the exact same stupid thing I did at Hillsboro and the same result happened.
I did not place well but I finished without crashing. There was one crash right behind me that sounded bad and sounded like the guy slid for quite some time. I was also hung up with two guys at one point and was sure I was going down, a guy on my right moved into me and pushed me into a guy on the left. I had to work hard not to push the guy to the left into the ditch. We got untangled and rode out and I had a few not so nice words for the guy who couldn’t hold his line. There was A LOT of that, really pretty scary at times.
So for the second race it was the Cat 4/5 race. It was about 3 hours later so I just hung out tried to stay fresh and limber. I was determined to not make the same mistake for a third time and go riding off the front like I did in the last two races and blow up. So I started in the back and stayed there. I even at one point found myself in last place. There were a few attacking attempts but no one had the strength to stay out and the pack moved really well. This race was 40 min + 4 laps so I was in no hurry to get to the front, it was hard to fight that urge but I did it. Slowly I moved my way up, there seamed to be a couple times on the course that everyone but me would slow down and I would just coast up the field. By about 40 min I was right at the front and felt GREAT. I had tons of energy and plenty of kick left.
I ended up 30 out of 50 or so but that was really I think due to my inexperience in moving in a field. In the last couple laps I was in the wrong area and got passed and was blocked. I was pretty much stuck in in the same line the entire race and had a hard time getting from one side to the other. There were parts where it was faster to be on the right, and others were faster on the left. I was most happy with 4/5 race even though I was no where near the front at the line, I felt I followed my game plan the best and executed much better.
This race our average speed was 23 miles per hour compared to 22mph in the first and I felt ten times better in the second compared to the first. So that really drove home the fact that I need to listen to Luke more and remember that “good racers know when to go fast”.
There were a few close calls in this race too, right off the bat, 3rd lap two guys hook up in front of me and go sideways but save it. There was a large crash behind me close to the end don’t know what happened there, as well as one guy busting some spokes locking up with someone, he rode it out though. On the last lap the coolest crash happened, there was a slight curb on the back half of the course and one guy in front of me must have taken it too close and clipped the inside curb and went cartwheeling into the grass. That happened about 20 feet in front of me and bike and man were clear of the rode so it was cool to see, and the guy was in the grass so relatively ok I think.
All in all I am really glad I raced so much this weekend. I was really bummed about Hillsboro, and doing these other races really helped me. I really learned a lot more racing so often. I think I will really be ready to go in two weeks in Indy.

Nick Hand