Town Center Crit 4/22/12

Well, we had another day at the races last weekend!  I'm excited to get back to some race posting, actually.  The Cyclist did some early season races but between weather, some of them being road races (which I typically don't spectate) and The Munchkin, I hadn't been able to pull together a real race post until Tax Day Match Sprints at the velodrome.

So here I am back with a race post.  I bring you the Town Center Criterium hosted by Folsom Bike.  Let me just start by explaining the weather for those of you who aren't in or around Sactown.  We went from about 50° and dumping rain to a smoldering 90° last weekend.  Typically us Sactown folk can handle 90° heat without blinking (it can get over 100° here in the summer), but a 40° jump will wallop anyone, for sure.  So, long story short, it was freaking hot...and slightly humid, which we are not used to.  Just to establish the heat factor a little more, I ran with CoCo in the morning and drank 7 (yes SEVEN) of my small runner's water bottles.  Seven.

You get it, it was hot.

So here is my perspective of the race for your reading pleasure....

So, once I saw that we had a guy in the break, the field was being controlled very well by the other team members and my Cyclist had dropped due to overheating, I went and sat in our grassy little spot in the shade and made faces at the babies.

And then I came back for the finish....

....just in time to watch Tankyoupete take the win.  Go FB!

Meanwhile, my Mom got a fancy new camera and she did a great job getting these shots...

Great work Peter!

For more photos check out these links:

Jim Elder - Sac Pictures

Images By Derek Novaes

Floyd Jasinksi MYi2U

For real race posts check out these links...they don't have Town Center Crit posts up (yet?), but they will give you true race commentary, which I don't do (I am just a spectator, after all).

 Chuck Hutch

Counterattacking Reality

Last but not least, a big thank you to Chuck Hutch for hooking us up with the Bistro 33 gift card.  We had a nice dinner with the fam.  That was super generous of you, thank you very much!

See you next weekend at Wente!

TCW

The Velodrome - Tax Day Match Sprints

We took a trip to the Hellyer Park Velodrome last Sunday for the Tax Day Match Sprints event.




For those of you not familiar with a velodrome, it is an arena for track cycling.  This one is 330 meters, so slightly smaller than a regular running track.



With his success at Savage Sprints (and sprinting skills in general), The Cyclist was encouraged by many of our local cycling community to try out the track.  He went a few times before this event in order to get his track license in order and we headed down to San Jose for the event on Sunday.
Spectating track cycling is a whole different medium.  The races are much faster and you can see the entire event, as opposed to watching the pack pass by on multiple occasions.
They started the day off with a time trial in order to seed the competitors into brackets.(You go girl, the only lady in the pack racing all the dudes!)


Once the tt's were done, the Match Sprints started.  I'm explaning this with my limited track cycling knowledge here, so it's probably not perfect, but, essentially two riders go head to head for two laps.
They line up holding on to the wall, and put their left hand in the drop when they're ready.

The first lap they ride very slow.  Like almost stopping slow.  It is like watching a game of cat and mouse.  "You go....no YOU go...".

The rider in front is constantly looking back to make sure they don't get sneak-attacked by the rider behind.

And then, somewhere between the start and middle of the second lap, they GO!  And from there it's a straight up sprint to the finish.

This was really exciting to watch.  There are many different other types of races which I have yet to learn, but I'm looking forward to spending some more time at the track.....I just wish it wasn't 2 hours away.  :(
Here I think, is my best shot of the day....

And here you can check out my raw video of a few of the events...

Last but not least....The Cyclist won the event!  Good job Cyclist!

Have a great weekend.  I'll see you next week with a re-cap of the Town Center Crit.