Depauw Criterium

The "Big Walnut Criterium" course was a 4 corner, 1.25 mile loop. The conditions were terrible, with both rain and wind (read this as: hail, rain, and 40-50 mph gusts, 30mph sustained winds). Not exactly the best conditions for bike racing.

*Men's Ds

Little Ryan manned-up from his crash the day before and lined up with a field of 50 riders for a 50 minute race. From the gun the race was fast and almost instantly got strung out. Ryan held on for as long as he could, but the wind proved too much for him, and eventually he was lapped and pulled from the race.

*Men's Cs

Eager to race after the mechanical issues the day before, Chase lined up with 55 other riders for a 50 minute race. Again the race started strong and was strung out right away. Chase held great positioning for the first half of the race, but then the leaders ramped up the pace, and he drifted off the back of the peloton. Refusing to give up he worked with a University of Michigan rider, trading pulls into the wind and fighting not to get lapped, finishing 26th.

*Men's Bs

Danny lined up with 40 other riders for a race time of 60 minutes. Since all the races up until this point had gotten strung out and went hard from the start, he should have expected his race to do the same. Danny however, was stupid (copied from his race report!) and didn't get a good warmup before the race started. Just as predicted, the race was hard from the start, and in the first 3 laps, 13 riders pulled away from the rest of the splintering peloton. Danny was not one of them and rode for a couple more laps alone before starting to finally get his legs under him. By then the pack was 50 seconds up, he was alone, and half the course was exposed to 40 mph winds (uphill both ways too?). For the next 20 minutes, he worked to close the gap and managed to shrink it from 50 to 20 seconds. That was as close as he got though, as the leaders picked up their pace for a prime Danny drifted back and joined a chase group of 7 riders. They rode the final 20 minutes together, and Danny finished 16th overall.

*Men's As
Uhh..How'd you do Ryan?
(I went home sick that morning and slept the majority of the next 20 hours)
Edit #1...from what I've heard from Danny & read on Will's race report:
Ryan got away early in a break of 8 including Will Nowak (NU) and 3 Marian riders. The break went on to eventually lap the field but confusion ensued and each of the final three laps were thought to be the last leaving Ryan wasted for the true finishing sprint.

Racing is all about learning from your mistakes. Lessons of the week:
-Bo:Don't switch to a bike you haven't ridden in three months on the morning of the race
-Danny:Always get a warm-up (that's two weeks in a row)
-Chase:Eat more pre-race/during
-Ryan: Get your team-mates a white-board so they can give you time-splits/number of laps remaining for you

From Ryan:
Crit Men's A's

I had the freedom to have fun and do as I pleased in this race so what do I
like to do...ATTACK. So I did. I waited for the first flurry of attacks
from the usual big names and when they settled down for a second and were
trying to catch there breath I decied to give it a shot. I instantly had
about a 15 - 20 second gap as no one was too concerned about me soloing for
an hour with the wind the way it was. However, I knew that teams eventually
would send someone up to join me, and eventually thats what happened. A
rider from Marian and some on ther team came up to join me but only the
Marian rider could stay with us. The other faded. It was me and the Marian
rider for a couple of laps and then a group of 6 got away from the field so
we waited for them. This group had most of the big names - Lebowitz
(Marian), Will (NW), Joey (Purdue), Kip (I think thats his name, LWC) and a
few others that I don't know there names. However there were 3 Marian
riders in the group so they sent one up the road. This meant that the other
Marian riders would work in the pace line but they wouldn't pull through as
hard and would just soft pedal. So we really didn't make much time on
catching the leader. However this led to random attacks from the group, and
frequent at that. This made for a hard race because we never really let
the pace get too slow and yet there were attacks and counters everywhere.
The end of this race however couldn't have gone any worse. We came around
and got the 1 to go card and so I thought there was one to go. So on that
lap when we came around to the finish we were about to lap the field which
created lots of confusion. I sprinted for the line and took what I thought
to be first or second, however some one started yelling to keep going.
Most of the leaders heard this and kept going. I however had to chase for
1/2 a lap to get back to them. Now they thought that this lap was the final
so we sprinted again and this time I may have been in 3rd or 4th. But when
we were approaching the line he gave us a card that said 3 to go. I then
played a terrible tactical end game where I was in the top 2 or 3 guys all
the time and chasing way too much. I ended up in 6th.

I learned this weekend that you have to be willing to lose a bike
race sometimes in order to win it. I need to learn to be patient at the end
of these races and let others chase the late attacks so I can have a kick in
the final 200 meters.
Anyway good luck to those of you in Georgia. Also thanks Chase and Ryan for
helping me out the last couple of weekends.

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The Son and the School

Posted on February 10, 2008


Peter is coming home from school and says to his mother: “Mom I’m not gong to school anymore and I have two reasons for that,
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