Kensington Recap

Well it was a fun weekend. Painful, yet fun. Saturday morning was the 2.7 miles time trial. I did well finishing 8th out of 57 in the Cat. 4 feild, with a time of 5:47, thats a 28mph average. The turn-around point was fun, i accidentaly locked my rear wheel at 25mph trying to make a 180 degree turn. But i stayed upright and made it around semi-safely. Out AAVC team did well taking 1st, 4th and 12th along with my 8th.

Saturday evening was the crit. With the entire tour an hour behind schedual now, we Cat. 4s and the Cat. 3s had a long time to wait. Finaly came time for the start of our race. Because we started late, we had to reduce the laps from 20, to 16. The course was quite easy, with the exeption of the first corner. It was an easy left hander, but the far right edge of the road just drops off to dirt and gravel. In the opening laps, someone pushed me off the road onto the dirt, but luckily i was in front of Eric (my teamate and yellow jersey wearer durring the crit), and he let me back onto the road. It was a really timid feild, people everywhere not holding their line, swerving, breaking, just causeing chaos. Finaly someone made the stupid move, and someone was pushed of the road, and couldn't hold their bike upright, and down they went. I happened to be on the left side of the road, and this crash was on the right, so i avoided it easily. But there were some unhappy people later on. Then finaly we get down to the final lap. We cross the start/finish line were going abour 27 mph, the we hit the turn, make it through nicely, we get into the straight section...and then there was a touch of wheels. I was in the middle of the pack on the left side (again, it seemed to be safer) and the two guys right in front of me went down, hard. It was pretty cool to watch them go down, exept that i was lined up with them. So i dove left, looking for a line through i dodged a body, then his bike, another body, no im on the far left edge of the road, i look like im home free.....BAM! Im on the ground protecting my head. The second guys' bike took out my rear wheel. Well i didnt waste a second, i grabbed my bike (which was in pretty bad shape, but still functioning), and jumped back on it. I rode as hard as i could into that headwind to the finishing line, comming in over a minute behind the feild. That dropped me to 30th place overall. After i finished, i went to the car and douced my elbow, thigh, and knee with hydrogen peroxide, then i wrapped it up and headed back to the course. By the time i got there, there were 2 ambulances, and several policemen. Apparently some guy had a heart attack, and another had an asthma attack. Needless to say, the Cat. 3s didnt go off untill 7pm (they only did 12 or 13 laps)

Sunday morning, time for the road race, 31.5 miles of unimaginable pain. After the crash the night before, i started the race pretty stiff. Alot of people were surprised that i showed up to race, comeon! this is cycling, you race no matter what! So the road race was a little less interesting. Slower speeds, but there was climbing. No one in our feild crashed, so thats good. I stayed near the back for most of the race, my goal was just to finish with the pack. And trust me, i was hurting the entire time, i got road rash on my right quad....that is deffinitly a muscle you use in cycling. So on the final lap, half mile or so from the finish, i hit the wall. I went on willpower the rest of the way, and it was a climb from there to the finish. I finished...just dangling off the back of the peleton, but i finished. I finished the tour 27th overall. Just think where i would have been had i not crashed! The AAVC did alright. Eric ended up 2nd overall after losing yellow in the crit. David finished 9th overall. It was a fun weekend. Can't wait untill next year.