Tour De Bowness - Part II

Courtesy of Ross Dance photography - Love this picture! Look of pain
in the faces of everyone! Also I seem to be taking an extra 5 degrees
of lean on that corner!

Circuit Race

Team strategy this time was to just all stay near the front, cover attacks, and we were gonna be lead out by Isaac on the final lap for glory.

Well, the first 4 or 5 laps of the circuit went pretty much as planned. I was always near the front but rarely right at the front.
On the final lap, I found Isaac on the long straight right before entering Glenmore park again, and secured my position. I heard a tire blow directly behind me and had a sneaking suspicion that was Peter (confirmed later.)

1000m from the finish, the road narrowed, guys were getting frisky and people started jumping. The problem is that some guys move right up but can't maintain the speed, and thus act as pylons on the road.
The faster guys have to swerve around them to catch the wheels up the road.

There must have been about 5 guys abreast and an RMCC guy collided with Isaac in front of me.
I could see it unfold but was boxed in like a sardine.
They went down and I went over, then down. Then I got run over.

Lay on the road, along with about 4 other guys, one of which sounded like he had a broken collarbone, howling with pain... yeesh.
Isaac was hurtin' too. I was pissed off, but didn't feel anything broken or bleeding too much.
Picked myself up, straightened my hoods, unlodged my brakes and pedaled to the line.

Below are some pictures of the carnage to my body and a dent on my bike.
(kieran counted something like 27 separate instances of road rash on my body, not to mention the swelling on my lower back from the chainring puncture and stiff neck from the head impact)

Criterium

Well, after a painful shower, a bottle of polysporin, new helmet, gloves, replacement kit, minor tuneup, a restless night, and a box of tegaderm (thx for the recommendation Andrew!), I performed a damage assessment in the morning, and thankfully felt somewhat okay.
My wrist felt worse and the lower back was quite sore, so I decided to head out early and do a nice long warmup ride on the trainer.



Still felt fine after the warmup so no DNS for me!
Lined up at the front alongside my #2 and #4 GC teammates Isaac and Peter. Bit of a botched clip-in, but off we went.

Stayed in the front 8 for most of the race, twisting around the gnarly streets of bowness.
Much more in control when you're up near the front.
On the 3rd and final prime lap (intermediate sprint), I found myself sitting in second going into the final turn, right behind the overall GC leader, Evan Burtnik (juventus).
Sat on his wheel for about the first 150m and decided I could over take him so began my launch. Just then a cyclemeister's kid knocked into my handlebars with his as he was attempting to pass me. We have 4 open lanes to ride on and this kid was way up in my space! I backed off immediately... not worth crashing on a straight open road going for $100 prime.

On another lap, APH guy came from outside in on corner 2 and I found myself heading straight into the curb. It's sort of a half-curb alongside the curb, only a couple inches above the ground, so I jumped it and kept my position!

Me chasing down the pink 

leader's jersey!

Peter launched an attack and I immediately went to the front and blocked to slow down the chase. He lasted out there by himself for about a lap and a half, surprisingly, with little help. A couple other attacks happened but were reeled in immediately.
Then Isaac attacked with about 5 laps to go.
Juventus team had just worked to reel in another attack and were too tired to respond. Peter and I went to the front and blocked again. It was working. A couple guys tried to bridge but we reeled them back.
Burtnik did manage to bridge and the two rode it in, with Isaac just missing out to the young Juventus power.
In the bunch sprint that followed, I came around the final turn in about 10th and managed to sprint past a number of guys, only getting passed by the pure sprinter Mike Hoang (he looks like he has a turbo in his bike when he sprints it's incredible).


Ended up 5th in the sprint, 7th overall. Not too displeased with this as I believe nearly the entire field stayed together, again. Wow, that cat 4 group is very tight.
Peter came in 9th too so we had 3 Speed Theory guys in top 10.

General classification remained the same since there were no time bonuses or gaps, I think I ended up 10th overall. It all came down to the hill climb, as predicted.

Next up is the midweek 20km ITT, then Jason Lapierre Memorial weekend, with all events counting towards the Alberta Cycling Super Week General Classification.