Venice Crit

Yesterday was the downtown Venice crit in Florida. I have always liked this course because it is technical and favors small breakaway groups because there are a lot of tight turns. I also like this course because I won here as a cat three and had a plan of what I wanted to do going into the race. The course is maybe around 1.5 k long. It starts out with a fast 90, then another 90, then there is a curve that takes the group through a sharp 150 to two tight 90s, down about 150 meters to a tight 180/ U-Turn about 50-75 meters before the line. The pro 1,2 race was 90 minutes plus five laps. Usually the first person in this turn wins the race. I had one teammate in David Guttenplan. The race started with attacks from the gun. I got in all the moves that I could until I spent all of my firepower and could only chase stuff down. After I had no snap I would chase groups back, and they would be really mad at me because I brought the whole group. Then David got in one group and I had a chance to rest up a bit. I went with a counter of 4 guys and we started to work. Then I think some guys bridged up to us making us a group of ten. Then Bobby Sweeting (NERAC/ Outdoor Lights), a local kid, attacked our group. Ivan Franco (VisionQuest) bridged up to Bobby. Shortly after this Joel Chavez (Vista Velo) got up with Bobby and Ivan. I just thought uh oh I gotta get up there. After all these attacks my group became 5 guys, and two of them were Vista Velo, so they wouldn't work with us to catch Joel. The gap was 15 seconds now, and I just knew I had to get up the road to that group. So, I started going crazy and taking risks in the turns and got a gap with only one Vista Velo rider on me. He crashed in the 180 when I had about 5 or 6 seconds to the leaders. I felt crappy possibly from my early efforts but knew I would be happy if I got in that group, and I eventually made after about two laps of chasing. Once I got in that group we just rolled through, increasing our lead on the peloton. We got away about 30' into the race, and I knew it was going to be a long day. We all pretty much did equal work, but sometimes Ivan would take a long hard pull. This is more or less all we did the whole time we were away. I felt bad when I first got the group, but as we settled in a rythm I started feeling better and better. Towards the end of the day I realized I was taking the turns better than all the other guys in my group. With five laps to go we had almost lapped the peloton, so we slowed the pace down because we didn't want to get back in the bunch because that would comlicate things. Going into the last lap I decided that I wanted last wheel. I jumped with all I had for the 150, just like I did when I won the race in cat 3, but Ivan saw me and also jumped beating me there. He took the next 90 too fast and ended up on the outhside of the cones separating the course. I just kept it going hard through the next 90. I sprinted for the 180 as I was catching the peloton. I saw a hole on the inside of the turn. I figured the people in the peloton could act as blockers for my breakaway companions. Ijumped in the hole as I skidded my back wheel through the 180, not panicking at all. I managed to keep it upright through the 180. (I guess my goof off rides on dirt roads and mountain bike trails paid off today!) I gased it through to the line and won. I am very happy because this was my first pro 1,2 race win, and I hope I can keep improving from now on.