The 2011 Wente Crit lived up to it’s reputation as a sketchy crashfest. First up for me was the 35+ Cat 4 race. 45 minutes with a more “mature” group of guys… Not so much. The course by all accounts should be a blast. It has lots of turns, it’s wide, and the pavement is OK. A lot more interesting than your typical 4 corner cookie cutter industrial park crit.
We lined up with around 40 guys. Much smaller than I had anticipated. They get us rolling on time and so the fun begins. We start out at a decent but relaxed clip. Kind of suss the course out a bit I figure. Pace slows down even more. We are noodling along around 20-21 mph. So I move around and find people to talk to. Do some catching up. Even the prime laps were taken at a mellow pace. That’s not to say the race was uneventful. Plenty of bush league moves kept us alert. I think there was a minor wreck about halfway through. Heard it but didn’t see it. Finally at 5 to go the pace picked up. Not fast but not as slow as before. I started to move up to the spot I wanted to be in. When we hit the bell I was sitting in the top 15 and was pretty set in my strategy. The front stretch from the last turn to the S\F line is long. Like 500 meters long. So my plan was to let the sprint open up and follow wheels till about 200 meters then hit the gas. I also didn’t want to be boxed in as happened in 2010. So, going into the last turn we are in a swarming mass. I’m on the outside somewhere in the front half of the bunch. Sprint starts and the dude in front of me launches. I just plant myself on his wheel and get towed along. For some reason he swerves to the left through the cones. As he does this his bike kicks a cone right into my path. Probably doing 29-30mph now. I had enough time to say Oh,Fu…crunch. Plow right over it as I didn’t want to deviate from my line. I quickly check that my sled is in one piece. Of course the wheel I was following was gone so I jumped from way to far out and ended up finishing 15th. Was making up ground fast but faded towards the end. At least I kept it planted right side up. Average speed for this field was only 24mph. Would have been even slower if the pace didn’t pick up the last 5 laps.
Mike