Jason B... First Report... The Mendes Crit

Hey team,

Here goes my first attempt at a race report:

Joaquin, and John, and I chatted briefly before the race started about strategy. I was feeling pretty good that morning and I thought I had achance to be in contention at the end of the race - the Elite 5 Crit wasonly 30 minutes long, and I figured, if I can hang on during the Thursday night race ride, 30 minutes with only cat 5 riders shouldn't be a problem. My plan was to keep my nose out of the wind, stay towards the front of the field, and be in a good position for the final sprint.
.
The first few laps were pretty fast, somewhere around 27 or 28 mph, but after a while we settled down to around 25. There were a few attacks here and there but nothing got away. I didn't manage to keep my nose out of the wind entirely, but I tried to be smart about it and not spend too much time pulling.
.
At three laps to go, I found myself on the inside of the field, about 10 bikes back. I didn't want to be on the inside for fear of getting pinched on a corner and losing too many positions, so I accelerated up to the front, pulled for about half a lap, and then pulled off to let somebody else takethe lead. I was able to slot in about 6 riders back, this time on the outside.
.
With two laps to go, the pace was starting to quicken and the field was starting to get strung out. The group of 8 or 10 of us that were at the front realized we were starting to put the hurt on, so we all started to encourage each other: come on guys, let's push it and get a gap. Weaccelerated up to about 30 and now the field was really strung out. We kept pushing hard to the final lap, and coming out of turn three we finallyopened a gap. We came into the final turn, and the sprint was on. We had a decent gap over the rest of the field so it was down to the group of 10, andI was at the back of that group coming around the final corner. We started sprinting but I had too far to go to catch the front of the group, but was able to pull back about half the group and came in 5th!
.
Had a great time and can't wait until the Folsom Crit!
.
-j-